THE  DESERT 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/desertfurtlierstoOOvandricli 


THE  DESERT 


FURTHER  STUDIES  IN  NATURAL 
APPEARANCES 


BY 

JOHN  C.  VAN  DYKE 

AUTHOR   OF    "NATURE    FOR   ITS    OWN    8AKB, 
"ART  FOR  ART'S  8AKB,"  ETC.,  KTO. 


lo^r 


NEW  YORK 

CHAKLES  SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
1902 


\f3 


f^ 


COPTMGHT,  1901,  BT 
CHARLES  SCRIBNEK'S  SONS 


Published  September,  1901. 

GENERAL 


mow  omicTonr 

MINniM  AND  SOOKBINOINO  OOMfAMri 


'DGlOli   LilJIdW 


PREFACE-DEDICATION 

Co 
A.  M.  0. 

After  the  making  of  Eden  came  a  serpent, 
and  after  the  gorgeous  furnishing  of  the  world, 
a  human  being.  Why  the  existence  of  the  de- 
stroyers ?  What  monstrous  folly,  think  you, 
ever  led  Nature  to  create  her  one  great  enemy 
— man  !  Before  his  coming  security  may  have 
been  ;  but  how  soon  she  learned  the  meaning  of 
fear  when  this  new  (Edipus  of  her  brood  was 
brought  forth  I  And  how  instinctively  she 
taught  the  fear  of  him  to  the  rest  of  her  chil- 
dren !  To-day,  after  centuries  of  association, 
every  bird  and  beast  and  creeping  thing — the 
wolf  in  the  forest,  the  antelope  on  the  plain, 
the  wild  fowl  in  the  sedge — fly  from  his  ap- 
proach. They  know  his  civilization  means  their 
destruction.  Even  the  grizzly,  secure  in  the 
chaparral  of  his  mountain  home,  flinches  as  he 
crosses  the  white  man's  trail.  The  boot  mark 
vii 


101624 


vm  PREFACE-DEDICATION 

in  the  dnst  smells  of  blood  and  iron.  The 
great  annihilator  has  come  and  fear  travels 
with  him. 

"  Familiar  facts,"  you  will  say.  Yes  ;  and  not 
unfamiliar  the  knowledge  that  with  the  coming 
of  civilization  the  grasses  and  the  wild  flowers 
perish,  the  forest  falls  and  its  place  is  taken 
by  brambles,  the  mountains  are  blasted  in  the 
search  for  minerals,  the  plains  are  broken  by 
the  plow  and  the  soil  is  gradually  washed  into 
the  rivers.  Last  of  all,  when  the  forests  have 
gone  the  rains  cease  falling,  the  streams  dry  up, 
the  ground  parches  and  yields  no  life,  and  the 
artificial  desert — the  desert  made  by  the  tramp 
of  human  feet — begins  to  show  itself.  Yes ; 
everyone  must  have  cast  a  backward  glance  and 
seen  Nature's  beauties  beaten  to  ashes  under 
the  successive  marches  of  civilization.  The 
older  portions  of  the  earth  show  their  desolation 
plainly  enough,  and  the  ascending  smoke  and 
dust  of  the  ruin  have  even  tainted  the  air  and 
dimmed  the  sunlight. 

Indeed,  I  am  not  speaking  figuratively  or 
extravagantly.  We  have  often  heard  of  "  Sunny 
Italy"  or  the  ''clear  light"  of  Egypt,  but  be- 
lieve me  there  is  no  sunlight  there  compared 
with  that  which  falls  upon  the  upper  peaks  of 


PREFACE-DEDICATION  IX 

the  Sierra  Madre  or  the  nninhabitable  wastes  of 
the  Colorado  Desert.  Pure  sunlight  requires  for 
its  existence  pure  air,  and  the  Old  World  has 
little  of  it  left.  When  you  are  in  Rome  again 
and  stand  upon  that  hill  where  all  good  roman- 
ticists go  at  sunset,  look  out  and  notice  how 
dense  is  the  atmosphere  between  you  and  St. 
Peter's  dome.  That  same  thick  air  is  all  over 
Europe,  all  around  the  Mediterranean,  even 
over  in  Mesopotamia  and  by  the  banks  of  the 
Ganges.  It  has  been  breathed  and  burned  and 
battle-smoked  for  ten  thousand  years.  Ride  up 
and  over  the  high  table-lands  of  Montana — one 
can  still  ride  there  for  days  without  seeing  a 
trace  of  humanity — and  how  clear  and  scentless, 
how  absolutely  intangible  that  sky-blown  sun- 
shot  atmosphere  I  You  breathe  it  without  feel- 
ing it,  you  see  through  it  a  hundred  miles  and 
the  picture  is  not  blurred  by  it. 

It  is  just  so  with  Nature's  color.  True 
enough,  there  is  much  rich  color  at  Venice,  at 
Cairo,  at  Constantinople.  Its  beauty  need  not 
be  denied ;  and  yet  it  is  an  artificial,  a  chemical 
color,  caused  by  the  disintegration  of  matter — 
the  decay  of  stone,  wood,  and  iron  torn  from 
the  neighboring  mountains.  It  is  Nature  after 
a  poor  fashion — Nature  subordinated  to  the  will 


X  PREFACE-DEDICATION 

of  man.  Once  more  ride  over  the  enchanted 
mesas  of  Arizona  at  sunrise  or  at  sunset,  with 
the  ragged  mountains  of  Mexico  to  the  south  of 
you  and  the  broken  spurs  of  the  great  sierra 
round  about  you  ;  and  all  the  glory  of  the  old 
shall  be  as  nothing  to  the  gold  and  purple  and 
burning  crimson  of  this  new  world. 

You  will  not  be  surprised  then  if,  in  speaking 
of  desert,  mesa  and  mountain  I  onoe  more  take 
you  far  beyond  the  wire  fence  of  civilization  to 
those  places  (unhappily  few  now)  where  the 
trail  is  unbroken  and  the  mountain  peak  un- 
blazed.  I  was  never  over-fond  of  park  and 
garden  nature-study.  If  we  would  know  the 
great  truths  we  must  seek  them  at  the  source. 
The  sandy  wastes,  the  arid  lands,  the  porphyry 
mountain  peaks  may  be  thought  profitless 
places  for  pilgrimages  ;  but  how  often  have  you 
and  I,  and  that  one  we  both  loved  so  much, 
found  beauty  in  neglected  marshes,  in  wintry 
forests,  and  in  barren  hill-sides !  The  love  of 
Nature  is  after  all  an  acquired  taste.  One  be- 
gins by  admiring  the  Hudson-River  landscape 
and  ends  by  loving  the  desolation  of  Sahara. 
Just  why  or  how  the  change  would  be  difficult 
to  explain.  You  cannot  always  dissect  a  taste 
or  a  passion.     Nor  can  you  pin  Nature  to  a 


PREFACE-DEDICATION  xi 

board  and  chart  her  beauties  with  square  and 
compasses.  One  can  give  his  impression  and 
but  little  more.  Perhaps  I  can  tell  you  some- 
thing of  what  I  have  seen  in  these  two  years  of 
wandering;  but  I  shall  never  be  able  to  tell 
you  the  grandeur  of  these  mountains,  nor  the 
glory  of  color  that  wraps  the  burning  sands  at 
their  feet.  We  shoot  arrows  at  the  sun  in  vain ; 
yet  still  we  shoot. 

And  so  it  is  that  my  book  is  only  an  excuse 
for  talking  about  the  beautiful  things  in  this 
desert  world  that  stretches  down  the  Pacific 
Coast,  and  across  Arizona  and  Sonora.  The 
desert  has  gone  a-begging  for  a  word  of  praise 
these  many  years.  It  never  had  a  sacred  poet ; 
it  has  in  me  only  a  lover.  But  I  trust  that  you, 
and  the  nature-loving  public  you  represent,  will 
accept  this  record  of  the  Colorado  and  the 
Mojave  as  at  least  truthful.  Given  the  facts 
perhaps  the  poet  with  his  fancies  will  come 

hereafter. 

John  C.  Van  Dyke. 

La  Noria  Verdb 
February,  1901. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  I.  TTie  Approach. — Desert  mountain  ranges 
— Early  morning  approach — Air  illusions — Sand  fonns — 
The  winds — Sun-shafts — Sunlight — Desert  life — Ante- 
lope— The  Lost  Mountains — The  ascent — Deer  trails — 
Footprints— The  stone  path— Defensive  walls— The  sum- 
mit— The  fortified  camp — Nature's  reclamations — The 
mountain  dwellers — Invading  hosts — Water  and  food 
supplies — The  aborigines — Historic  periods — The  open 
desert — Perception  of  beauty — Sense  of  beauty — Moun- 
tain "view"  of  the  desert — Desert  colors— The  land  of 
fire — Drouth  and  heat— Sand  and  gypsum — Sand- whirls — 
/desert  storms — Drift  of  sands — Winter  cold  in  the  basin 
— Snow  on  desert— Sea  and  sand— Grim  desolation — Love  l^' 
for  the  desert — The  descent— The  Padres  in  the  desert — 
The  light  of  the  cross — Aboriginal  faith 1 

Chapter  II.     The  Make  of  the  Desert.— The  sea  of 

sand — Mountain  ranges  on  desert— Plains,  valleys,  and 
mesas — Effect  of  drouth — The  rains — Harshness  of  des- 
ert— A  gaunt  land — Conditions  of  life — Incessant  strife 
— Elemental  warfare  —  Desert  vegetation  —  Protruding 
edges — Shifting  sands — Desert  winds— Radiation  of  heat 
— Prevailing  winds — Wear  of  the  winds — Erosion  of 
mountains  —  Rock-cutting — Fantastic  forms  — Wash-outs 
— Sand-lines  in  caves — Cloud-bursts — Canyon  waters — 
Desert  floods — Power  of  water  —  Water-pockets  —  No 
ziii 


XIV  CONTENTS 

sarf ace-streams  —  Oases  in  the  waste  —  Catch-basins  — 
Old  sea-beds — Volcanic  action — Lava-flows — Geological 
ages— Kinds  of  rock — Glaciers — Land  slips — Movement 
of  stones—The  talus — Stages  of  the  talus — Desert  floors 
— Sandstone  blocks — Salt-beds — Sand-beds —  Mountain 
vegetation — Withered  grasses — Barren  rock — Mountain 
colors — Saw-toothed  ridges — Seen  from  the  peaks — The 
Sun-fire  kingdom 23 

Chapter  IIL  The  Bottom  of  the  Bowl. — Early  geo- 
logical days — The  former  Gulf — Sea-beaches  on  desert — 
Harbors  and  reefs — Indian  remains — The  Cocopas— The 
Colorado  River — The  delta  dam — The  inland  lake — The 
first  fall — Springs  and  wells  in  the  sea-bed — The  New 
River — New  beaches — The  second  fall — The  third  beach 
— The  failing  water — Evaporation — Bottom  of  the  Bowl 
— Drying  out  of  the  sea-bed — Advance  of  the  desert — Be- 
low sea-level— Desolation  of  the  basin — Beauty  of  the 
sand-dunes  —  Cactus  and  salt-bush  —  Desert  animals  — 
Birds— Lizards  and  snakes — Mirage — The  water  illusion 
—Decorative  landscapes— Sensuous  qualities  in  Nature 
— Changing  the  desert— Irrigation  in  the  basin — Changing 
the  climate — Dry  air — Value  of  the  air  supply — Value  of 
the  desert — Destruction  of  natural  beauty — Effects  of 
mining,  lumbering,  agriculture — Ploughing  the  prairies — 
"  Practical  men  " — Fighting  wind,  sand,  and  heat — Na- 
ture eternal — Return  of  desolation 44 

Chapter  IV.  The  Silent  River.— B.i8e  of  the  Colora- 
do^In  the  canyon— On  the  desert — The  lower  river — 
Sluggish  movement— Stillness  of  the  river— The  river's 
name — Its  red  color — Compared  with  the  Nile — The 
blood  hue — River  changes — Red  sands  and  silt — River- 
banks— ''Bottom"  lands— Green  bordering  bands- 
Bushes  and  flowers— Soundless  water— Wild  fowl— Her- 


CONTENTS  XV 

ons  and  bitterns — Snipe — Sadness  of  bird-life — The  for- 
saken shores — Solitude — Beauty  of  the  river — Its  maj- 
esty— The  delta — Disintegration — The  river  in  flood — 
The  "  bore" — Meeting  of  river  and  sea — The  blue  tomb 
—Shores  of  Gulf 63 

Chapter  V.  Lights  Air^  and  Color. — Popular  ideas 
— Sunlight  on  desert — Glare  and  heat — Pure  sunlight — 
Atmospheric  envelope — Vapor  particles  in  air — Clear  air 
— Dust  particles — Hazes — Seeing  the  desert  air — Sea- 
breezes  on  desert — Colored  air — Different  hues — Pro- 
ducing color — Refracted  rays — Cold  colors,  how  produced 
— Warm  colors — Sky  colors — Color  produced  by  dust — 
Effect  of  heat — Effect  of  winds — Sand-storms — Reflec- 
tions upon  sky — Blue,  yellow,  and  pink  hazes — The  dust- 
veil — Summer  coloring— Local  hues — Greens  of  desert 
plants — Color  of  the  sands — Sands  in  mirage — Color  of 
mountain  walls — Weather  staining— Influence  of  the  air 
— Peak  of  Baboquivari— Buttes  and  spires — Sun-shafts 
through  canyons — Complementary  hues  in  shadow — Col- 
ored shadows — Blue  shadows  upon  salt-beds — How  light 
makes  color — Desert  sunsets 77 

Chapter  VI.  Desert  Sky  and  Clouds. — Common- 
place things  of  Nature — The  blue  sky — Changes  in  the 
blue — Dawns  on  the  desert — Blue  as  a  color — Sky  from 
mountain  heights — Blackness  of  space — Bright  sky-col- 
ors— Horizon  skies — Spectrum  colors — Bands  of  yellow 
— The  orange  sky — Desert-clouds — Rainfall — Effect  of 
the  nimbus— Cumuli— Heap- clouds  at  sunset — Strati — 
Cirri — Ice -clouds— Fire-clouds — The  celestial  tapestry — 
The  desert  moon — Rings  and  rainbows — Moonlight — 
Stars — The  midnight  sky — Alone  in  the  desert — The  mys- 
teries—Space and  immensity — The  silences — The  cry  of 
the  human 95 


XVI  CONTENTS 

Chapter  VII.  Elusions. — Reality  and  appearance — 
Preconceived  impressions — Deception  by  sunlight — Dis- 
torted forms  and  colors — Changed  appearance  of  moun- 
tains— Changes  in  line  and  light — False  perspective — 
Abnormal  foreshortening — Contradictions  and  denials — 
Deceptive  distances — Dangers  of  the  desert — Immensity 
of  valley-plains  —  Shadow  illusions  —  Color-patches  on 
mountains — Illusions  of  lava-beds — Appearance  of  cloud- 
shadows — Mirage — Need  of  explanation — Refraction  of 
light-rays — Dense  air-strata — Illustration  of  camera-lens 
— Bent  light-rays— Ships  at  sea  and  upside  down — 
Wherein  the  illusion — '*  Looming  "  of  vessels,  cities,  and 
islands — Reversed  image  of  mountains — Horses  and  cattle 
in  mirage — Illusion  of  rising  buttes — Other  causes  of 
mirage — Water-mirage — The  lake  appearance — How  pro- 
duced— Objects  in  water — Confused  mirage — The  swim- 
ming wolf — Colors  and  shadows  in  mirage — Trembling 
air — Beauty  of  mirage 109 

Chapter  VIII.  Cactus  and  Orease-Wood. — Views  of 
Nature — Growth  and  decay — Nature's  plan — The  law  of 
change — Nature  foiling  her  own  plans — Attack  and 
drouth — Preservation  of  species — Means  of  preservation 
—Maintaining  the  status  gwo- The  plant-struggle  for  life 
— Fighting  heat  and  drouth — Prevention  of  evaporation — 
Absence  of  large  leaves — Exhaust  of  moisture — Gums 
and  varnishes  of  bushes — The  ocatilla — Tap  roots— Un- 
derground structure — Feeding  the  top  growth— Storage 
reservoirs  below  ground — Reservoirs  above  ground — 
Thickened  barks — Gathering  moisture — Attacks  upon  des- 
ert plants— Browsing  animals — Weapons  of  defence — 
The  spine  and  thorn — The  crucifixion  thorn — The  sting 
of  flowers — Fierceness  of  the  plant — Odors  and  juices — 
Saps  astringent  and  cathartic — Expenditure  of  energy — 
The  desert  covering — Use  of  desert  plants — Their  beauty 


CONTENTS  XVii 


Beauty  in  character — Forms  of  the  yucca  and  maguey — 

The  lluvia  d'oro — Grotesque  forms— Abnormal  colors — 
Blossoms  and  flowers— Many  varieties— Wild  flowers— 
Salt-bush  —  The  grasses  and  lichens— The  continuous 
struggle 128 

Chapter  IX.  Desert  Animals,— Meeting  desert  re- 
quirements— Peculiar  desert  character — Desert  Indians 
—Life  without  water— Endurance  of  the  jack-rabbit 
—  Prairie  dogs  and  water  — Water  famine — Coyotes 
and  wild  cats  living  without  water — Lean,  gaunt  life — 
Fierceness  of  animals — Attack  and  escape— The  wild 
cat— Spring  of  the  cat— Mountain  lion — His  habits — 
The  gray  wolf— Home  of  the  wolf— The  coyote— His 
cleverness— His  subsistence— His  background— The  fox 
— The  prey — Devices  for  escape — Senses  of  the  rabbit — 
Speed  of  the  jack-rabbit — His  endurance — The  "  cotton- 
tail " — Squirrels  and  gophers — Desert  antelope — His  eyes, 
nose,  and  ears — His  swiftness — The  mule-deer — Deer 
in  flight — White-tailed  deer — The  reptiles — Defence  of 
poison— The  fang  and  sting — The  rattlesnake  and  his 
poison — Spiders  and  tarantulas— Centipedes  and  scor- 
pions— Lizards  and  swifts — The  hydrophobia  skunk — The 
cutthroat  band — The  eternal  struggle — Brute  courage 
and  character — Beauty  in  character— Graceful  forms  of 
animals — Colors  of  lizards — Mystery  of  motion 150 

Chapter  X.  Winged  Life. — First  day's  walk — Tracks 
in  the  sand — Scarcity  of  birds — Dangers  of  bird-life — No 
cover  for  protection — Food  problem — Heat  and  drouth 
again — A  bird's  temperature — Innocent-looking  birds — 
The  road-runner — Wrens  and  fly-catchers — Develop- 
ment of  special  characteristics — Birds  of  the  air — The 
vulture— His  hunting  and  sailing — The  southern  buzzard 
—The  crow — The  great  condor — ^Eagles  and  hawks — Bats 


XVIU  CONTENTS 

and  owls — The  burrowing  owl — Ground-birds — The  road- 
runner's  swiftness — The  vicious  beak — The  desert  quail 
— Wings  of  the  quail — Travelling  for  water — Habits  of 
the  quail— His  strong  legs — Bush-birds — Woodpeckers 
and  cactus — Finches  and  mocking-birds — Humming-birds 
— Doves  and  grosbeaks — The  lark  and  flickers — Jays  and 
magpies — Water  fowl — Beetles  and  worms — Fighting  de- 
struction by  breed — Blue  and  green  beetles — Butterflies — 
Design  and  character — Beauty  of  birds — Beauty  also  of 
reptiles — Nature's  work  all  purposeful — Precious  jewel 
of  the  toad 174 

Chapter  XI.  Mesas  and  Foot-Hills. — Flat  steps  of 
the  desert — Across  Southern  Arizona — Rising  from  the 
desert — The  great  mesas — "  Grease -wood  plains" — Up- 
land vegetation — Grass  plains — Spring  and  summer  on  the 
plains — Home  of  the  antelope — Beds  of  soda  and  gypsum 
—  Riding  into  the  unexpected  —  The  Grand  Canyon 
country — Hills  covered  with  juniper— The  Painted  Desert 
— Riding  on  the  mesas— The  reversion  to  savagery — The 
thin  air  again — The  light  and  its  deceptions — Distorted 
proportions — Changed  colors — The  little  liills — Painting 
the  desert — Worn -down  mountains — Mountain  wash — 
Flattening  down  the  plain — Mountain  making — The  foot- 
bills — Forms  of  the  foot-hills — Mountain  plants — Bare 
mountains — The  southern  exposures — Gray  lichens — Still 
in  the  desert — Arida  Zona — Cloud-bursts  in  the  mesas — 
Wash  of  rains — Gorge  cutting — In  the  canyons — Walls 
of  rock — Color  in  canyon  shadows — Blue  sky — Desert 
landscape  —  Knowledge  of  Nature  —  Nature-lovers  — 
Human  limitations 194 

Chapter  XII.  Mountain -Barriers. — The  western 
mountains — Saddles  and  passes — View  from  mountain 
top— Looking  toward    the    peaks — Lost   streams — Ava- 


CONTENTS  XIX 

lanches  and  bowlder-beda — Ascent  by  the  arroyo — Growth 
of  the  stream — Rising  banks — Waterfalls — Gorges — As- 
cent by  the  ridges — The  chaparral — Home  of  the  grizzly 
— Ridge  trails — Among  the  live-oaks — Birds  and  deer — 
Yawning  canyons — Canyon  streams — Snow — Water  wear 
— The  pines — Barrancas  and  escarpments — Under  the 
pines — Bushes,  ferns,  and  mosses — Mountain- quail — In- 
digo jays — Warblers — The  mountain  air— The  dwarf 
pines — The  summit — The  look  upward  at  the  sky — The 
dark-blue  dome — White  light — Distant  views — The  Pa- 
cific— Southern  California — The  garden  in  the  desert — 
Reclaiming  the  valleys — Nature's  fight  against  fertility — 
The  desert  from  the  mountain  top — The  great  extent  of 
desert — The  fateful  wilderness — All  shall  perish — The 
death  of  worlds — The  desert  the  beginning  of  the  end 
—  Development  through  adversity  —  Sublimity  of  the 
waste  —  Desolation  and  silence  —  Good-night  to  the 
desert 213 


I   i;iV:V-;.3!TY  j 


THE  DESERT 


CHAPTEE  I 

THE  APPROACH 

It  is  the  last  considerable  group  of  mountains 
between  the  divide  and  the  low  basin  of  the 
Colorado  desert.  For  days  I  have  been  watch- 
ing them  change  color  at  sunset — watching  the 
canyons  shift  into  great  slashes  of  blue  and 
purple  shadow,  and  the  ridges  flame  with  edg- 
ings of  glittering  fire.  They  are  lonesome  look- 
ing  mountains  lying  off  there  by  themselves  on 
the  plain,  so  still,  so  barren,  so  blazing  hot 
under  the  sun.  Forsaken  of  their  kind,  one 
might  not  inappropriately  call  them  the  ''  Lost 
Mountains" — the  surviving  remnant  no  doubt 
of  some  noble  range  that  long  centuries  ago 
was  beaten  by  wind  and  rain  into  desert  sand. 
And  yet  before  one  gets  to  them  they  may  prove 
quite  formidable  heights,  with  precipitous  sides 
and  unsurmountable  tops.  "Who  knows  ?  Not 
those  with  whom  I  am  stopping,  for  they  have 


Desert 
mowitains. 


THE   DESERT 


TTnhnoton 
ranges. 


Early 
morning  on 
the  desert. 


AiriUur 
sions. 


not  been  there.  They  do  not  even  know  the 
name  of  them.  The  Papagoes  leave  them  alone 
because  there  is  no  game  in  them.  Evidently 
they  are  considered  unimportant  hills,  no- 
body's hills,  no  man's  range ;  but  nevertheless 
I  am  off  for  them  in  the  morning  at  daylight. 

I  ride  away  through  the  thin  mesquite  and 
the  little  adobe  ranch  house  is  soon  lost  to  view. 
The  morning  is  still  and  perfectly  clear.  The 
stars  have  gone  out,  the  moon  is  looking  pale, 
the  deep  blue  is  warming,  the  sky  is  lightening 
with  the  coming  day.  How  cool  and  crystalline 
the  air  !  In  a  few  hours  the  great  plain  will  be 
almost  like  a  fiery  furnace  under  the  rays  of 
the  summer  sun,  but  now  it  is  chilly.  And  in 
a  few  hours  there  will  be  rings  and  bands  and 
scarves  of  heat  set  wavering  across  the  waste 
upon  the  opalescent  wings  of  the  mirage ;  but 
now  the  air  is  so  clear  that  one  can  see  the 
breaks  in  the  rocky  face  of  the  mountain 
range,  though  it  is  fully  twenty  miles  away. 
It  may  be  further.  "Who  of  the  desert  has  not 
spent  his  day  riding  at  a  mountain  and  never 
even  reaching  its  base  ?  This  is  a  land  of  illu-I 
sions  and  thin  air.  The  vision  is  so  cleared  at 
times  that  the  truth  itself  is  deceptive.  But  I 
shall  ride  on  for  several  hours.     If,  by  twelve 


THE  APPROACn 


o'clock,  the  foot  hills  are  not  reached,  I  shall 
turn  back. 

The  summer  heat  has  withered  everything 
except  the  mesquite,  the  palo  verde,*  the 
grease-wood,  and  the  various  cacti.  Under  foot 
there  is  a  little  dry  grass,  but  more  often 
patches  of  bare  gravel  and  sand  rolled  in  shal- 
low beds  that  course  toward  the  large  valleys. 
In  the  draws  and  flat  places  the  fine  sand  lies 
thicker,  is  tossed  in  wave  forms  by  the  wind, 
and  banked  high  against  clumps  of  cholla  or 
prickly  pear.  In  the  wash-outs  and  over  the 
cut  banks  of  the  arroyos  it  is  sometimes  heaped 
in  mounds  and  crests  like  driven  snow.  It 
blows  here  along  the  boundary  line  between 
Arizona  and  Sonora  almost  every  day ;  and  the 
tailing  of  the  sands  behind  the  bushes  shows 
that  the  prevailing  winds  are  from  the  Gulf 
region.  A  cool  wind  ?  Yes,  but  only  by  com- 
parison with  the  north  wind.  When  you  feel 
it  on  your  face  you  may  think  it  the  breath  of 
some  distant  volcano. 

How  pale  -  blue  the  Lost  Mountains  look 
under  the  growing  light.  I  am  watching  their 
edges  develop  into  broken  barriers  of  rock,  and 

•  The  use  of  Spanish  names  is  compulsory.  There  are 
no  English  equivalents. 


THE  DESERT 


Sun  shafts. 


The  beauty 
of  sunlight. 


even  as  I  watch  the  tallest  tower  of  all  is  struck 
with  a  bright  fawn  color.  It  is  the  high  point 
to  catch  the  first  shaft  of  the  sun.  Quickly  the 
light  spreads  downward  until  the  whole  ridge  is 
tinged  by  it,  and  the  abrupt  sides  of  porphyry 
begin  to  glow  under  it.  It  is  not  long  before 
great  shafts  of  light  alternating  with  shadow 
stretch  down  the  plain  ahead  of  me.  The  sun 
is  streaming  through  the  tops  of  the  eastern 
mountains  and  the  sharp  pointed  pinnacles  are 
cutting  shadows  in  the  broad  beam  of  light. 

That  beam  of  light  I  Was  there  ever  any- 
thing so  beautiful !  How  it  flashes  its  color 
through  shadow,  how  it  gilds  the  tops  of  the 
mountains  and  gleams  white  on  the  dunes  of 
the  desert !  In  any  land  what  is  there  more 
glorious  than  sunlight !  Even  here  in  the 
desert,  where  it  falls  fierce  and  hot  as  a  rain  of 
meteors,  it  is  the  one  supreme  beauty  to  which 
all  things  pay  allegiance.  The  beast  and  the 
bird  are  not  too  fond  of  its  heat  and  as  soon  as 
the  sun  is  high  in  the  heavens  they  seek  cover 
in  the  canyons ;  but  for  all  that  the  chief  glory 
of  the  desert  is  its  broad  blaze  of  omnipresent 
light. 

Yes,  there  is  animal  and  bird  life  here  though 
it  is  not  always  apparent  unless  you  look  for  it. 


THE  APPROACH 


Wrens  and  linnets  are  building  nests  in  the 
cholla,  and  finches  are  singing  from  the  top  of 
the  sahuarc*  There  are  plenty  of  reptiles, 
rabbits  and  ground  squirrels  quietly  slipping 
out  of  your  way ;  and  now  that  the  sun  is  up 
you  can  see  a  long  sun-burned  slant-of-hair 
trotting  up  yonder  divide  and  casting  an  appre- 
hensive head  from  side  to  side  as  he  moves  off. 
It  is  not  often  that  the  old  gray  wolf  shows 
himself  to  the  traveller.  He  is  usually  up  in 
the  mountains  before  sunrise.  And  seldom 
now  does  one  see  the  desert  antelope  along  the 
mesas,  and  yet  off  to  the  south  you  can  see 
patches  of  white  that  come  and  go  almost  like 
flashing  mirrors  in  the  sun.  They  are  stragglers 
from  some  band  that  have  drifted  up  from  cen- 
tral Sonora.  No;  they  are  not  far  away.  A 
little  mirage  is  already  forming  over  that  portion 
of  the  mesa  and  makes  them  look  more  distant 
than  they  are  in  reality.  You  can  be  deceived 
on  the  desert  by  the  nearness  of  things  quite  as 
often  as  by  their  remoteness. 

These  desert  mountains  have  a  fashion  of  ap- 
pearing distant  until  you  are  almost  up  to  them. 
Then  they  seem  to  give  up  the  game  of  decep- 
tion and  come  out  of  their  hiding-places.     It  is 
•  Properly  Saguaro. 


THE  DESERT 


Mountain 
toalls. 


The  ascent. 


Deer  trailt. 


just  SO  with  the  mountains  toward  which  I  am 
riding.  After  several  hours  they  seem  to  rise 
up  suddenly  in  front  of  me  and  I  am  at  their 
base.  They  are  not  high — perhaps  fifteen 
hundred  feet.  The  side  near  me  is  precipitous 
rock,  weather-stained  to  a  reddish-black.  A 
ride  around  the  bases  discloses  an  almost  com- 
plete perpendicular  wall,  slanting  off  half  way 
down  the  sides  into  sloping  beds  of  bowlders 
that  have  been  shaken  loose  from  the  upper 
strata.  A  huge  cleft  in  the  western  side — half 
barranca  half  canyon — seems  to  suggest  a  way 
to  the  summit. 

The  walking  up  the  mountain  is  not  the  best 
in  the  world.  It  is  over  splintered  rock,  step- 
ping from  stone  to  stone,  creeping  along  the 
backbone  of  bowlders,  and  worrying  over  rows 
of  granite  blocks.  Presently  the  course  seems 
to  slip  into  a  diagonal — a  winding  up  and 
around  the  mountain — and  ahead  of  me  the 
stones  begin  to  look  peculiar,  almost  familiar. 
There  seems  to  be  a  trail  over  the  ledges  and 
through  the  broken  blocks ;  but  what  should 
make  a  trail  up  that  deserted  mountain  ? 
Mule-deer  travelling  toward  the  summit  to  lie 
down  in  the  heat  of  the  day  ?  It  is  possible. 
The  track  of  a  band  of  deer  soon  becomes  a 


THE  APPROACH 


beaten  path,  and  animals  are  just  as  fond  of 
a  good  path  as  humanity.  By  a  strange  coin- 
cidence at  this  very  moment  the  sharp-toed 
print  of  a  deer's  hoof  appears  in  the  ground 
before  me.  But  it  looks  a  little  odd.  The  im- 
pression is  so  clear  cut  that  I  stoop  to  examine 
it.  It  is  with  no  little  astonishment  that  I  find 
it  sunk  in  stone  instead  of  earth — petrified  in 
rock  and  overrun  with  silica.  The  bare  sug- 
gestion gives  one  pause.  How  many  thousands 
of  years  ago  was  that  impression  stamped  upon 
the  stone  ?  By  what  strange  chance  has  it 
survived  destruction  ?  And  while  it  remains 
quite  perfect  to-day — the  vagrant  hoof-mark  of 
a  desert  deer — what  has  become  of  the  once 
carefully  guarded  footprints  of  the  Sargons, 
the  Pharaohs  and  the  Caesars  ?  With  what 
contempt  Nature  sometimes  plans  the  survival 
of  the  least  fit,  and  breaks  the  conqueror  on  his 
shield ! 

Further  up  the  mountain  the  deer-trail  theory 
is  abandoned — at  least  so  far  as  recent  times  are 
concerned.  The  stones  are  worn  too  smooth, 
the  larger  ones  have  been  pushed  aside  by 
something  more  intelligent  than  a  mule-deer's 
hoof  ;  and  in  one  place  the  trail  seems  to  have 
been  built  up  on  the  descending  side.     There  is 


8 


THE  DESERT 


Folioioing 
the  traU. 


D^ensive 


The 

tummit. 


not  the  slightest  evidence,  either  by  rnh  npon 
the  rocks,  or  overturned  stones,  or  scrape  in 
the  gravel,  that  any  living  thing  has  passed  up 
this  pathway  for  many  years  ;  and  yet  the  trail 
is  a  distinct  line  of  lighter  colored  stone  stretch- 
ing ahead  of  me.  It  is  a  path  worn  in  the 
rocks,  and  there  is  no  grass  or  vine  or  weed  to 
obliterate  it.  It  leads  on  and  up  to  the  saddle 
of  the  mountain.  There  is  a  crevasse  or  chasm 
breaking  through  this  saddle  which  might  have 
been  bridged  at  one  time  with  mesquite  trunks, 
but  is  now  to  be  leaped  if  one  would  reach  the 
summit.  It  is  narrow  only  in  one  place  and 
this  is  just  where  the  trail  happens  to  run. 
Across  it,  on  the  upper  side,  there  is  a  horse- 
shoe shaped  enclosure  of  stone.  It  is  only 
a  few  feet  in  diameter,  and  the  upper  layers  of 
stone  have  fallen ;  but  the  little  wall  still  stands 
as  high  as  one's  waist.  Could  this  have  been 
a  sentinel  box  used  to  guard  the  passage  of  the 
trail  at  this  place  ? 

Higher  and  still  higher  until  at  last  the 
mountain  broadens  into  a  flat  top.  I  am  so 
eager  to  gain  the  height  and  am  expecting  so 
much  that  at  first  I  overlook  what  is  before  me. 
Gradually  I  make  out  a  long  parapet  of  loose 
stone  on  the  trail  side  of  the  mountain  which 


THE  APPROACH 


joins  on  to  steep  cliffs  on  the  other  sides.  A 
conclusion  is  instantly  jumped  at,  for  the  im- 
agination will  not  make  haste  slowly  under  such 
circumstances.  These  are  the  ruins  of  a  once 
fortified  camp. 

I  wander  about  the  flat  top  of  the  mountain 
and  slowly  there  grows  into  recognizable  form  a 
great  rectangle  enclosed  by  large  stones  placed 
about  two  feet  apart.  There  is  no  doubt  about 
the  square  and  in  one  corner  of  it  there  seems 
an  elevated  mound  covered  with  high-piled 
stones  that  would  indicate  a  place  for  burials. 
But  not  a  trace  of  pottery  or  arrow-heads  ;  and 
about  the  stones  only  faint  signs  of  fire  which 
might  have  come  from  volcanic  action  as  readily 
as  from  domestic  hearths.  Upon  the  side  of 
one  of  the  large  rocks  are  some  characters  in 
red  ochre  ;  and  on  the  ground  near  a  pot-hole 
in  the  rock,  something  that  the  imagination 
might  torture  into  a  rude  pestle  for  grinding 
maize. 

The  traces  of  human  activity  are  slight.  Nat- 
ure has  been  wearing  them  away  and  reclaim- 
ing her  own  on  the  mountain  top.  Grease- 
wood  is  growing  where  once  a  floor  was  beaten 
hard  as  iron  by  human  feet ;  out  of  the  burial 
mound  rises  a  giant  sahuaro  whose  branching 


The  fortified 


Nature's 
reclamor- 
tions. 


10 


THE  DESERT 


Mountain' 
dwellers. 


Invading 
hosts. 


arms  give  the  look  of  the  cross  ;  and  beside 
the  sahuaro  rests  a  tall  yucca  with  four  feet  of 
clustering  bellflowers  swinging  from  its  top. 

And  who  were  they  who  built  these  stone  walls, 
these  primitive  entrenchments  ?  When  and 
where  did  they  come  from  and  what  brought 
them  here  ?  The  hands  that  executed  this 
rough  work  were  certainly  untrained.  Indians  ? 
Very  likely.  Perhaps  some  small  band  that  had 
taken  up  a  natural  defence  in  the  mountains 
because  too  feeble  in  numbers  to  fight  in  the 
open.  Here  from  this  lookout  they  could  watch 
the  country  for  a  hundred  miles  around.  Here 
the  scouts  could  see  far  away  the  thin  string  of 
foemen  winding  snake-like  over  the  ridges  of 
the  desert,  could  see  them  grow  in  size  and 
count  their  numbers,  could  look  down  upon 
them  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain  and  yell  back 
defiance  to  the  challenge  coming  up  the  steep 
sides.  Brave  indeed  the  invaders  that  would 
pluck  the  eagles  from  that  eerie  nest  I  Climb- 
ing a  hill  against  a  shower  of  arrows,  spears, 
and  bowlders  is  to  fight  at  a  terrible  disad- 
vantage. 

Starve  them  out  ?  Yes ;  but  the  ones  at  the 
bottom  would  starve  as  quickly  as  those  at  the 
top.     Cut  off  their  water  supply  ?    Yes ;  but 


THE  APPROACH 


11 


where  did  either  besieged  or  besieger  get  water? 
If  there  was  ever  a  spring  in  the  mountain  it 
long  ago  dried  up,  for  there  is  no  trace  of  it  to- 
day. Possibly  the  mountain-dwellers  knew  of 
some  arroyo  where  by  digging  in  the  sand  they 
could  get  water.  And  possibly  they  carried 
it  in  ollas  up  the  stone  trail  to  their  mountain 
home  where  they  stored  it  in  the  rocks  against 
the  wrath  of  a  siege  to  come.  No  doubt  they 
took  thought  for  trouble,  and  being  native  to 
the  desert  they  could  stand  privation  better 
than  their  enemies. 

How  long  ago  did  that  aboriginal  band  come 
trailing  over  these  trackless  deserts  to  find  and 
make  a  home  in  a  barren  mountain  standing 
in  a  bed  of  sand  ?  Who  can  tell  ?  A  geologist 
might  make  the  remains  of  their  fort  an  il- 
lustration of  the  Stone  Age  and  talk  of  un- 
known centuries ;  an  iconoclast  might  claim 
that  it  was  merely  a  Mexican  corral  built  to 
hide  stolen  horses ;  but  a  plain  person  of  the 
southwest  would  say  that  it  was  an  old  Indian 
camp.  The  builders  of  the  fortification  and  the 
rectangle  worked  with  stone  because  there  was 
no  other  material.  The  man  of  the  Stone  Age 
exists  to-day  contemporary  with  civilized  man. 
Possibly  he  always  did.     And  it  may  be  that 


Water  and 
food  sup- 
plies. 


TheabO' 
rigines. 


12 


THE   DESERT 


some  day  Science  will  conclude  that  historic 
periods  do  not  invariably  happen,  that  there  is 
not  always  a  sequential  evolution,  and  that  the 
white  race  does  not  necessarily  require  a  flat- 
headed  mass  of  stupidity  for  an  ancestor. 

But  what  brought  them  to  seek  a  dwelling 
place  in  the  desert  ?  Were  they  driven  out  from 
the  more  fertile  tracts  ?  Perhaps.  Did  they 
find  this  a  country  where  game  was  plentiful 
and  the  conditions  of  life  comparatively  easy  ? 
It  is  possible.  Or  was  it  that  they  loved  the 
open  country,  the  hot  sun,  the  treeless  wastes, 
the  great  stretches  of  mesa,  plain  and  valley  ? 
Ah ;  that  is  more  than  likely.  Mankind  has 
always  loved  the  open  plains.  He  is  like  an 
antelope  and  wishes  to  see  about  him  in  all  di- 
rections. Perhaps,  too,  he  was  born  with  a  pre- 
dilection for  *'  the  view,''  but  that  is  no  easy 
matter  to  prove.  It  is  sometimes  assumed  that 
humanity  had  naturally  a  sense  and  a  feeling 
for  the  beautiful  because  the  primitives  deco- 
rated pottery  and  carved  war-clubs  and  totem- 
posts.  Again  perhaps  ;  but  from  war-clubs  and 
totem-posts  to  sunsets  and  mountain  shadows 
— the  love  of  the  beautiful  in  nature — is  a  very 
long  hark.  The  peons  and  Indians  in  Sonora 
cannot  see  the  pinks  and  purples  in  the  moun- 


THE  APPROACH 


13 


tain  shadows  at  sunset.  They  are  astonished  at 
your  question  for  they  see  nothing  but  moun- 
tains. And  you  may  vainly  exhaust  ingenuity 
trying  to  make  a  Pagago  see  the  silvery  sheen 
of  the  mesquite  when  the  low  sun  is  streaming 
across  its  tops.  He  sees  only  mesquite — the 
same  dull  mesquite  through  which  he  has 
chased  rabbits  from  infancy. 

No  ;  it  is  not  likely  that  the  tribe  ever  chose 
this  abiding  place  for  its  scenery.  A  sensitive 
feeling  for  sound,  or  form,  or  color,  an  impres- 
sionable nervous  organization,  do  not  belong  to 
the  man  with  the  hoe,  much  less  to  the  man 
with  the  bow.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  they  are 
indicative  of  some  physical  degeneration,  some 
decline  in  bone  and  muscle,  some  abnormal 
development  of  the  emotional  nature.  They 
travel  side  by  side  with  high  civilization  and 
are  the  premonitory  symptoms  of  racial  decay. 
But  are  we  correct  in  assuming  that  because 
the  red  man  does  not  see  a  colored  shadow 
therefore  he  is  blind  to  every  charm  and  sub- 
limity of  nature  ? 

These  mountain-dwellers,  always  looking  out 
from  their  height,  must  have  seen  and  re- 
marked the  large  features  of  the  desert — the 
great  masses  of  form,  the  broad  blocks  of  color. 


Sense  of 
beauty. 


ifountain 


14 


THE   DESERT 


The  desert 
colors. 


LooJcing 
dovm  to  the 
desert. 


They  knew  the  long  undulations  of  the  valley- 
plain  were  covered  with  sharp,  broken  rock,  but 
from  this  height  surely  they  must  have  noticed 
how  soft  as  velvet  they  looked,  how  smoothly 
they  rolled  from  one  into  another,  how  perfect- 
ly they  curved,  how  symmetrically  they  waved. 
And  the  long  lines  of  the  divides,  lessening  to 
the  west — their  ridges  of  grease-wood  showing 
a  peculiar  green  like  the  crests  of  sea-waves 
in  storm — did  they  not  see  them  ?  Did  they 
not  look  down  on  the  low  neighboring  hills  and 
know  that  they  were  pink,  terra-cotta,  orange- 
colored — all  the  strange  hues  that  may  be  com- 
pounded of  clay  and  mineral^with  here  and 
there  a  crowning  mass  of  white  quartz  or  a  far- 
extending  outcrop  of  shale  stained  blue  and 
green  with  copper  ?  Doubtless,  a  wealth  of 
color  and  atmospheric  effect  was  wasted  upon 
the  aboriginal  retina ;  but  did  it  not  take  note 
of  the  deep  orange  sunsets,  the  golden  fringed 
heaps  of  cumulus,  and  the  tongues  of  fire  that 
curled  from  every  little  cirrus  cloud  that  lin- 
gered in  the  western  sky  ? 

And  how  often  they  must  have  looked  out 
and  down  to  the  great  basin  of  the  desert  where 
cloud  and  sky,  mountain  and  mesa,  seemed  to 
dissolve  into  a  pink  mist !    It  was  not  an  un- 


THE  APPROACH 


15 


known  land  to  them  and  yet  it  had  its  terrors. 
Tradition  told  that  the  Evil  Spirit  dwelt  there, 
and  it  was  his  hot  breath  that  came  np  every 
morning  on  the  wind,  scorching  and  burning 
the  brown  faces  of  the  mountain-dwellers  ! 
Fire  ! — he  dwelt  in  fire.  Whence  came  all  the 
fierce  glow  of  sunset  down  over  that  desert  if  it 
was  not  the  reflection  from  his  dwelling  place  ? 
The  very  mountain  peaks  flared  red  at  times, 
and  in  the  old  days  there  were  rivers  of  fire. 
The  petrified  waves  and  eddies  of  those  rivers 
were  still  visible  in  the  lava  streams.  Were 
there  not  also  great  flames  beneath  the  sands 
that  threw  up  hot  water  and  boiled  great  vol- 
canoes of  mud  ?  And  along  the  base  of  many 
a  cliff  were  there  not  jets  of  steam  and  smoke 
blown  out  from  the  heart  of  the  mountains  ? 

It  was  a  land  of  fire.  No  food,  no  grass,  no 
water.  There  were  places  in  the  canyons  where 
occasionally  a  little  stream  was  found  forcing 
itself  up  through  the  rock;  but  frequently  it 
was  salt  or,  worse  yet,  poisoned  with  copper  or 
arsenic.  How  often  the  tribe  had  lost  from  its 
numbers — slain  by  the  heat  and  drought  in 
that  waste  !  More  than  once  the  bodies  had 
been  found  by  crossing  bands  and  always  the 
same  tale  was  told.     The  victims  were  half 


Th9  land 

fire. 


Drought 
and  heat. 


16 


THE  DESERT 


Degert 

mystety. 


Sand  and 
gypsum. 


Sand- 
whirlt 


buried  in  sand,  not  decayed,  but  withered  like 
the  grass  on  the  lomas. 

Mystery — a  mystery  as  luminous  and  yet  as 
impenetrable  as  its  own  mirage — seemed  always 
hanging  over  that  low-lying  waste.  It  was  a 
vast  pit  dug  under  the  mountain  bases.  The 
mountains  themselves  were  bare  crags  of  fire  in 
the  sunlight,  and  the  sands  of  the  pit  grew 
only  cactus  and  grease -wood.  There  were  tracts 
where  nothing  at  all  grew — miles  upon  miles  of 
absolute  waste  with  the  pony's  feet  breaking 
through  an  alkaline  crust.  And  again,  there 
were  dry  lakes  covered  with  silt ;  and  vast  beds 
of  sand  and  gypsum,  white  as  snow  and  fine  as 
dust.  The  pony's  feet  plunged  in  and  came 
out  leaving  no  trail.  The  surface  smoothed  over 
as  though  it  were  water.  Fifty  miles  away  one 
could  see  the  desert  sand-whirls  moving  slowly 
over  the  beds  in  tall  columns  two  thousand 
feet  high  and  shining  like  shafts  of  marble  in 
the  sunlight.  How  majestically  they  moved, 
their  feet  upon  earth,  their  heads  towering 
into  the  sky ! 

And  then  the  desert  winds  that  raised  at 
times  such  furious  clouds  of  sand  I  All  the 
air  shone  like  gold-dust  and  the  sun  turned 
red  as  blood.    Ah  !  what  a  stifling  sulphureous 


THE  APPROACH 


17 


air  I  Even  on  the  mountain  tops  that  heaw 
air  could  be  felt,  and  down  in  the  desert  itself 
the  driving  particles  of  sand  cut  the  face  and 
hands  like  blizzard-snow.  The  ponies  could 
not  be  made  to  face  it.  They  turned  their 
backs  to  the  wind  and  hung  their  heads  be- 
tween their  fore  feet.  And  how  that  wind 
roared  and  whistled  through  the  thm  grease- 
wood  I  The  scrubby  growths  leaned  and  bent 
in  the  blast,  the  sand  piled  high  on  the  trunks ; 
and  nothing  but  the  enormous  tap-roots  kept 
them  from  being  wrenched  from  the  earth. 

And  danger  always  followed  the  high  winds. 
They  blew  the  sands  in  clouds  that  drifted  full 
and  destroyed  the  trails.  In  a  single  night 
they  would  cover  up  a  water  hole,  and  in  a  few 
days  fill  in  an  arroyo  where  water  could  be  got 
by  digging.  The  sands  drove  like  breakers  on 
a  beach,  washing  and  wearing  everything  up 
to  the  bases  of  the  mountains.  And  the  fine 
sand  reached  still  higher.  It  whirled  up  the 
canyons  and  across  the  saddles,  it  eddied  around 
the  enormous  taluses,  it  even  flung  itself  upon 
the  face  walls  of  the  mountain  and  left  the 
smoothing  marks  of  its  fingers  upon  the  sharp 
pinnacles  of  the  peak. 

It  was  in  winter  when  the  winds  were  fiercest. 


Desert 
storms. 


Drift  of 
sand. 


18 


THE  DESERT 


Winter  cold. 


With  them  at  times  came  a  sharp  cold,  the 
more  biting  for  the  thin  dry  air  of  the  desert. 
All  the  warmth  seemed  blown  ont  of  the  basin 
with  a  breath,  and  its  place  filled  by  a  storm- 
wind  from  the  north  that  sent  the  condor 
wheeling  down  the  blast  and  made  the  coyote 
shiver  on  the  hill.  How  was  it  possible  that 
such  a  furnace  could  grow  so  cold  !  And  once 
or  more  each  winter,  when  the  sky  darkened 
with  clouds,  there  was  a  fall  of  snow  that  for 
an  hour  or  so  whitened  the  desert  mountains 
and  then  passed  away.  At  those  times  the 
springs  were  frozen,  the  high  sierras  were 
snow-bound,  and  down  in  the  desert  it  seemed 
as  though  a  great  frost-sheet  had  been  let  down 
from  above.  The  brown  skins  for  all  their 
deer-hide  clothing  were  red  with  cold,  and  the 
breath  blown  from  the  pony's  nostrils  was 
white  as  smoke. 

A  waste  of  intense  heat  and  cold,  of  drouth 
and  cloud-bursts,  of  winds  and  lightning,  of 
storm  and  death,  what  could  make  any  race  of 
hunters  or  band  of  red  men  care  for  it  ?  "What 
was  the  attraction,  wherein  the  fascination  ? 
How  often  have  we  wondered  why  the  sailor 
loves  the  sea,  why  the  Bedouin  loves  the  sand  I 
What  is  there  but  a  strip  of  sky  and  another 


THE  APPROACH 


19 


strip  of  sand  or  water  ?  But  there  is  a  sim- 
plicity about  large  masses  —  simplicity  in 
breadth,  space  and  distance — that  is  inviting 
and  ennobling.  And  there  is  something  very 
restful  about  the  horizontal  line.  Things  that 
lie  flat  are  at  peace  and  the  mind  grows  peace- 
ful with  them.  Furthermore,  the  waste  places 
of  the  earth,  the  barren  deserts,  the  tracts  for- 
saken of  men  and  given  over  to  loneliness,  have 
a  peculiar  attraction  of  their  own.  The  weird 
solitude,  the  great  silence,  the  grim  desolation, 
are  the  very  things  with  which  every  desert 
wanderer  eventually  falls  in  love.  You  think 
that  very  strange  perhaps  ?  Well,  the  beauty 
of  the  ugly  was  sometime  a  paradox,  but  to-day 
people  admit  its  truth ;  and  the  grandeur  of 
the  desolate  is  just  as  paradoxical,  yet  the 
desert  gives  it  proof. 

But  the  sun-tanned  people  who  lived  on  this 
mountain  top  never  gave  thought  to  masses, 
or  horizontal  lines,  or  paradoxes.  They  lived 
here,  it  may  be  from  necessity  at  first,  and  then 
stayed  on  because  they  loved  the  open  wind- 
blown country,  the  shining  orange-hued  sands, 
the  sweeping  mesas,  the  great  swing  of  the 
horizontal  circle,  the  flat  desolation,  the  un- 
broken solitude.     Nor  ever  knew  why  they 


20 


THE  DESERT 


The  descent. 


Hie  Padres. 


loved  it.     They  were  content  and  that  was 
enongh. 

What  finally  became  of  them  ?  Who  knows  ? 
One  by  one  they  passed  away,  or  perhaps  were 
all  slaughtered  in  a  night  by  the  fierce  band 
newly  come  to  numbers  called  the  Apaches. 
This  stone  wall  stands  as  their  monument,  but 
it  tells  no  date  or  tale  of  death.  As  I  descend 
the  trail  of  stone  the  fancy  keeps  harping  on 
the  countless  times  the  bare  feet  must  have 
rubbed  those  blocks  of  syenite  and  porphyry 
to  wear  them  so  smooth.  Have  there  been  no 
others  to  clamber  up  these  stairs  of  stone  ? 
What  of  the  Padres  —  were  they  not  here  ? 
As  I  ride  off  across  the  plain  to  the  east  the 
thought  is  of  the  heroism,  the  self-abnega- 
tion, the  undying  faith  of  those  followers  of 
Loyola  and  Xavier  who  came  into  this  waste  so 
many  years  ago.  How  idle  seem  all  the  specious 
tales  of  Jesuitism  and  priestcraft.  The  Padres 
were  men  of  soul,  unshrinking  faith,  and  a  per- 
severance almost  unparalleled  in  the  annals  of 
history.  The  accomplishments  of  Columbus, 
of  Cortez,  of  Coronado  were  great ;  but  what 
of  those  who  first  ventured  out  upon  these  sands 
and  erected  missions  almost  in  the  heart  of  the 
desert,  who  single-handed  coped  with  dangers 


THE  APPROACH 


21 


from  man  and  nature,  and  who  lived  and  died 
without  the  slightest  hope  of  reward  here  on 
earth  ?  Has  not  the  sign  of  the  cross  cast  more 
men  in  heroic  mould  than  ever  the  glitter  of 
the  crown  or  the  flash  of  the  sword  ? 

And  thinking  such  thoughts  I  turn  to  take  a 
final  view  of  the  mountain  ;  and  there  on  the 
fortified  top  something  rears  itself  against  the 
sky  like  the  cross-hilt  of  a  sword.  It  is  the 
giant  sahuaro  with  its  rising  arms,  and  beside 
it  the  cream-white  bloom  of  the  yucca  shining 
in  the  sunlight  seems  like  a  lamp  illuminating 
it.  The  good  Padres  have  gone  and  their  mis- 
sion churches  are  crumbling  back  to  the  earth 
from  which  they  were  made ;  but  the  light  of 
the  cross  still  shines  along  the  borders  of  this 
desert  land.  The  flame,  that  through  them  the 
Spirit  kindled,  still  burns  ;  and  in  every  Indian 
village,  in  every  Mexican  adobe,  you  will  see  on 
the  wall  the  wooden  or  grass-woven  cross.  On 
the  high  hills  and  at  the  cross-roads  it  stands, 
roughly  hewn  from  mesquite  and  planted  in  a 
cone  of  stones.  It  is  now  always  weather-stained 
and  sun-cracked,  but  still  the  sign  before  which 
the  peon  and  the  Indian  bow  the  head  and  whis- 
per words  of  prayer.  The  dwellers  beside  the 
desert  have  cherished  what  the  inhabitants  of 


22 


THE  DESEET 


the  fertile  plains  have  thrown  away.  They  and 
their  forefathers  have  never  known  civilization, 
and  never  suffered  from  the  blight  of  doubt. 
Of  a  simple  nature,  they  have  lived  in  a  simple 
way,  close  to  their  mother  earth,  beside  the 
desert  they  loved,  and  (let  us  believe  it !)  nearer 
to  the  God  they  worshipped. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  MAKE  OF  THE  DESERT 


The  first  going -down  into  the  desert  is 
always  something  of  a  surprise.  The  fancy 
has  pictured  one  thing ;  the  reality  shows  quite 
another  thing.  Where  and  how  did  we  gain 
the  idea  that  the  desert  was  merely  a  sea  of 
sand  ?  Did  it  come  from  that  geography  of  our 
youth  with  the  illustration  of  the  sand-storm, 
the  flying  camel,  and  the  over-excited  Bedouin  ? 
Or  have  we  been  reading  strange  tales  told  by 
travellers  of  perfervid  imagination — the  Marco 
Polos  of  to-day  ?  There  is,  to  be  sure,  some 
modicum  of  truth  even  in  the  statement  that 
misleads.  There  are  ''  seas  "  or  lakes  or  ponds 
of  sand  on  every  desert ;  but  they  are  not  so 
vast,  not  so  oceanic,  that  you  ever  lose  sight  of 
the  land. 

What  land  ?     Why,   the  mountains.      The 

desert  is  traversed  by  many  mountain  ranges, 

some  of  them  long,  some  short,  some  low,  and 

some  rising  upward  ten  thousand  feet.    They 

23 


Sea  of  sand. 


Mountain 
ranges  on 
the  desert. 


24 


THE  DESERT 


Plains,  val- 
leys, and 
viiesas. 


Sffect  of 
drought. 


are  always  circling  you  with  a  ragged  horizon, 
dark-hned,  bare-faced,  barren — just  as  truly 
desert  as  the  sands  which  were  washed  down 
from  them.  Between  the  ranges  there  are 
wide-expanding  plains  or  valleys.  The  most 
arid  portions  of  the  desert  lie  in  the  basins  of 
these  great  valleys — flat  spaces  that  were  once 
the  beds  of  lakes,  but  are  now  dried  out  and 
left  perhaps  with  an  alkaline  deposit  that  pre- 
vents vegetation.  Through  these  valleys  run 
arroyos  or  dry  stream- beds — shallow  channels 
where  gravel  and  rocks  are  rolled  during  cloud- 
bursts and  where  sands  drift  with  every  wind. 
At  times  the  valleys  are  more  diversified,  that  is, 
broken  by  benches  of  land  called  mesas,  dotted 
with  small  groups  of  hills  called  lomas,  crossed 
by  long  stratified  faces  of  rock  called  escarp- 
ments. 

With  these  large  features  of  landscape  com- 
mon to  all  countries,  how  does  the  desert  differ 
from  any  other  land  ?  Only  in  the  matter  of 
water — the  lack  of  it.  If  Southern  France 
should  receive  no  more  than  two  inches  of  rain 
a  year  for  twenty  years  it  would,  at  the  end  of 
that  time,  look  very  like  the  Sahara,  and  the 
flashing  Rhone  would  resemble  the  sluggish 
yellow  Nile.     If  the  Adirondack  region  in  New 


THE  MAKE  OF  THE  DESERT 


25 


York  were  comparatively  rainless  for  the  same 
length  of  time  we  should  have  something  like 
the  Mojave  Desert,  with  the  Hudson  changed 
into  the  red  Colorado.  The  conformations  of 
the  lands  are  not  widely  different,  but  their 
surface  appearances  are  as  unlike  as  it  is  pos- 
sible to  imagine. 

For  the  whole  face  of  a  land  is  changed  by 
the  rains.  "With  them  come  meadow-grasses 
and  flowers,  hillside  vines  and  bushes,  fields  of 
yellow  grain,  orchards  of  pink-white  blossoms. 
Along  the  mountain  sides  they  grow  the  forests 
of  blue-green  pine,  on  the  peaks  they  put  white 
caps  of  snow ;  and  in  the  valleys  they  gather 
their  waste  waters  into  shining  rivers  and  flash- 
ing lakes.  This  is  the  very  sheen  and  sparkle 
— the  witchery — of  landscape  which  lend  allure- 
ment to  such  countries  as  New  England,  France, 
or  Austria,  and  make  them  livable  and  lovable 
lands. 

Bat  the  desert  has  none  of  these  charms. 
Nor  is  it  a  livable  place.  There  is  not  a  thing 
about  it  that  is  *' pretty,'^  and  not  a  spot  upon 
it  that  is  '^ picturesque^'  in  any  Berkshire- Val- 
ley sense.  The  shadows  of  foliage,  the  drift  of 
clouds,  the  fall  of  rain  upon  leaves,  the  sound 
of  running  waters — all  the  gentler  qualities  of 


The  efeet  of 
rains. 


Harshneas 
of  the  desert. 


26 


THE  DESERT 


A  gaunt 
land. 


Conditions 
of  life. 


nature  that  minor  poets  love  to  juggle  with — 
are  missing  on  the  desert.  It  is  stern,  harsh, 
and  at  first  repellent  But  what  tongue  shall 
tell  the  majesty  of  it,  the  eternal  strength  of  it, 
the  poetry  of  its  wide-spread  chaos,  the  sub- 
limity of  its  lonely  desolation  !  And  who  shall 
paint  the  splendor  of  its  light ;  and  from  the 
rising  up  of  the  sun  to  the  going  down  of  the 
moon  over  the  iron  mountains,  the  glory  of  its 
wondrous  coloring  !  It  is  a  gaunt  land  of 
splintered  peaks,  torn  valleys,  and  hot  skies. 
And  at  every  step  there  is  the  suggestion  of  the 
fierce,  the  defiant,  the  defensive.  Everything 
within  its  borders  seems  fighting  to  maintain 
itself  against  destroying  forces.  There  is  a  war 
of  elements  and  a  struggle  for  existence  going 
on  here  that  for  ferocity  is  unparalleled  else- 
where in  nature. 

The  feeling  of  fierceness  grows  upon  you  as 
you  come  to  know  the  desert  better.  The  sun- 
shafts  are  falling  in  a  burning  shower  upon 
rock  and  dune,  the  winds  blowing  with  the 
breath  of  far-off  fires  are  withering  the  bushes 
and  the  grasses,  the  sands  drifting  higher  and 
higher  are  burying  the  trees  and  reaching  up  as 
though  they  would  overwhelm  the  mountains, 
the  cloud-bursts  are  rushing  down  the  moun- 


THE  MAKE   OF  THE  DESERT 


27 


tain's  side  and  through  the  torn  arroyos  as 
though  they  would  wash  the  earth  into  the  sea. 
The  life,  too,  on  the  desert  is  peculiarly  savage. 
It  is  a  show  of  teeth  in  bush  and  beast  and 
reptile.  At  every  turn  one  feels  the  presence  of 
the  barb  and  thorn,  the  jaw  and  paw,  the  beak 
and  talon,  the  sting  and  the  poison  thereof. 
Even  the  harmless  Gila  monster  flattens  his 
body  on  a  rock  and  hisses  a  ''Don't  step  on 
me."  There  is  no  living  in  concord  or  brother- 
hood here.  Everything  is  at  war  with  its 
neighbor,  and  the  conflict  is  unceasing. 

Yet  this  conflict  is  not  so  obvious  on  the  face 
of  things.  You  hear  no  clash  or  crash  or  snarl. 
The  desert  is  overwhelmingly  silent.  There 
is  not  a  sound  to  be  heard ;  and  not  a  thing 
moves  save  the  wind  and  the  sands.  But  you 
look  up  at  the  worn  peaks  and  the  jagged  bar- 
rancas, you  look  down  at  the  wash-outs  and 
piled  bowlders,  you  look  about  at  the  wind- 
tossed,  half -starved  bushes ;  and,  for  all  the 
silence,  you  know  that  there  is  a  struggle  for 
life,  a  war  for  place,  going  on  day  by  day. 

How  is  it  possible  under  such  conditions  for 
much  vegetation  to  flourish  ?  The  grasses  are 
scanty,  the  grease -wood  and  cactus  grow  in 
patches,  the  mesquite  crops  out  only  along  the 


28 


THE    DESERT 


dry  river-beds.  All  told  there  is  hardly  enough 
covering  to  hide  the  anatomy  of  the  earth. 
And  the  winds  are  always  blowing  it  aside. 
You  have  noticed  how  bare  and  bony  the  hills 
of  New  England  are  in  winter  when  the  trees 
are  leafless  and  the  grasses  are  dead  ?  You  have 
seen  the  rocks  loom  up  harsh  and  sharp,  the 
ledges  assume  angles,  and  the  backbone  and  ribs 
of  the  open  field  crop  out  of  the  soil  ?  The 
desert  is  not  unlike  that  all  the  year  round. 
To  be  sure  there  are  snow-like  driftings  of  sand 
that  muffle  certain  edges.  Valleys,  hills,  and 
even  mountains  are  turned  into  rounded  lines 
by  it  at  times.  But  the  drift  rolled  high  in 
one  place  was  cut  out  from  some  other  place ; 
and  always  there  are  vertehrm  showing — elbows 
and  shoulders  protruding  through  the  yellow 
byssus  of  sand. 

The  shifting  sands  !  Slowly  they  move,  wave 
upon  wave,  drift  upon  drift ;  but  by  day  and 
by  night  they  gather,  gather,  gather.  They 
overwhelm,  they  bury,  they  destroy,  and  then 
a  spirit  of  restlessness  seizes  them  and  they 
move  off  elsewhere,  swirl  upon  swirl,  line  upon 
line,  in  serpentine  windings  that  enfold  some 
new  growth  or  fill  in  some  new  valley  in  the 
waste.    So  it  happens  that  the  surface  of  tho 


THE  MAKE  OF  THE  DESERT 


29 


desert  is  far  from  being  a  permanent  affair. 
There  is  hardly  enough  vegetation  to  hold  the 
sands  in  place.  With  little  or  no  restraint  upon 
them  they  are  transported  hither  and  yon  at 
the  mercy  of  the  winds. 

Yet  the  desert  winds  hardly  blow  where  they 
list.  They  follow  certain  channels  or  "  draws  " 
through  the  mountain  ranges ;  and  the  reason 
for  their  doing  so  is  plain  enough.  During  the 
day  the  intense  heat  of  the  desert,  meeting  with 
only  a  thin  dry  air  above  it,  rises  rapidly  sky- 
ward leaving  a  vast  vacuum  below  that  must  be 
filled  with  a  colder  air  from  without.  This 
colder  air  on  the  southern  portion  of  the  Colo- 
rado Desert  comes  in  from  the  Gulf  region. 
One  can  feel  it  in  the  passes  of  the  mountains 
about  Baboquivari,  rushing  up  toward  the 
heated  portions  of  Arizona  around  Tucson. 
And  the  hotter  the  day  the  stronger  the  inward 
rush  of  the  wind.  Some  days  it  will  blow  at 
the  rate  of  fifty  miles  an  hour  until  sunset,  and 
then  with  a  cessation  of  radiation  the  wind 
stops  and  the  night  is  still. 

On  the  western  portions  of  the  Colorado  the 
wind  comes  from  the  Pacific  across  Southern 
California.  The  hot  air  from  the  desert  goes 
up  and  out  over  the  Coast  Kange,  reaching  sea- 


Desert 
voindt. 


Badiation 
qfheat. 


30 


THE  DESERT 


Prevailing 
vrinds. 


Wear  of 
Vie  winds. 


ward.  How  far  out  it  goes  is  unknown,  but 
when  it  has  cooled  off  it  descends  and  flows 
back  toward  the  land  as  the  daily  sea-breeze. 
It  re-enters  the  desert  through  such  loop  holes 
in  the  Coast  Range  as  the  San  Gorgonio  Pass — 
the  old  Puerta  de  San  Carlos — above  Indio. 
The  rush  of  it  through  that  pass  is  quite  vio- 
lent at  times.  For  wind  is  very  much  like 
water  and  seeks  the  least  obstructed  way.  Its 
goal  is  usually  the  hottest  and  the  lowest  place 
on  the  desert — such  a  place,  for  example,  as 
Salton,  though  I  am  not  prepared  to  point  out 
the  exact  spot  on  the  desert  that  the  winds 
choose  as  a  target.  On  the  Mojave  Desert  at 
the  north  their  action  is  similar,  though  there 
they  draw  down  from  the  Mount  "Whitney  re- 
gion as  well  as  from  the  Pacific; 

In  open  places  these  desert  winds  are  some- 
times terrific  in  force  though  usually  they  are 
moderate  and  blow  with  steadiness  from  certain 
directions.  As  you  feel  them  softly  blowing 
against  your  cheek  it  is  hard  to  imagine  that  they 
have  any  sharp  edge  to  them.  Yet  about  you 
on  every  side  is  abundant  evidence  of  their 
works.  The  sculptor's  sand-blast  works  swifter 
but  not  surer.  Granite  and  porphyry  cannot 
withstand   them,  and  in   time   they  even   cut 


THE  MAKE   OF  THE  DESERT 


31 


through  the  glassy  surface  of  lava.  Their  wear 
is  not  here  nor  there,  but  all  over,  everywhere. 
The  edge  of  the  wind  is  always  against  the  stone. 
Continually  there  is  the  slow  erosion  of  canyon, 
crag,  and  peak ;  forever  there  is  a  gnawing  at 
the  bases  and  along  the  face-walls  of  the  great 
sierras.  Grain  by  grain,  the  vast  foundations, 
the  beetling  escarpments,  the  high  domes  in  air 
are  crumbled  away  and  drifted  into  the  valleys. 
Nature  heaved  up  these  mountains  at  one  time 
to  fulfil  a  purpose  :  she  is  now  taking  them 
down  to  fulfil  another  purpose.  If  she  has 
not  water  to  work  with  here  as  elsewhere  she  is 
not  baffled  of  her  purpose.  Wind  and  sand  an- 
swer quite  as  well. 

But  the  cutting  of  the  wind  is  not  always 
even  or  uniform,  owing  to  the  inequalities  in 
the  fibre  of  rock  ;  and  often  odd  effects  are  pro- 
duced by  the  softer  pieces  of  rock  wearing  away 
first  and  leaving  the  harder  section  exposed  to 
view.  Frequently  these  remainders  take  on 
fantastic  shapes  and  are  likened  to  things  hu- 
man, such  as  faces,  heads,  and  hands.  In  the 
San  Gorgon io  Pass  the  rock-cuttings  are  in 
parallel  lines,  and  occasionally  a  row  of  gar- 
nets in  the  rock  will  make  the  jewel-pointed 
fingers  of  a  hand  protruding  from  the  parent 


Eronnn  of 
mountains. 


Rock- 
cutting. 


THE  DESERT 


Fantasiie 


Wath-ouU. 


Sand-lineM 
in  caves. 


body.*  Again  shafts  of  hard  granite  may  make 
tall  spires  and  turrets  upon  a  mountain  peak,  a 
vein  of  quartz  may  bulge  out  in  a  white  or  yel- 
low or  rose-colored  band  ;  and  a  ridge  of  black 
lava,  reaching  down  the  side  of  a  foot-hill,  may 
creep  and  heave  like  the  backbone  of  an  enor- 
mous dragon. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  erosion  is  in  the  passes 
through  which  the  winds  rush  into  the  desert. 
Here  they  not  only  eat  into  the  ledges  and  cut 
away  the  rock  faces,  but  they  make  great  wash- 
outs in  the  desert  itself.  These  trenches  look 
in  every  respect  as  though  caused  by  water.  In 
fact  the  effects  of  wind  and  water  are  often  so 
inextricably  mixed  that  not  even  an  expert  geol- 
ogist would  be  able  to  say  where  the  one  leaves 
off  and  the  other  begins.  The  shallow  caves  of 
the  mountains — ^too  high  up  for  any  wave  action 
from  sea  or  lake,  and  too  deep  to  be  reached 
by  rains — have  all  the  rounded  appearance  of 
water-worn  receptacles.  One  can  almost  see 
the  water-lines  upon  the  walls.  But  the  sand- 
heaped  jfloor  suggests  that  the  agent  of  erosion 
was  the  wind. 

Yes ;  there  is  some  water  on  the  deserts,  some 

♦Professor  Blake  of  the  University  of  Arizona  has 
called  my  attention  to  this. 


THE  MAKE  OF  THE  DESERT 


33 


rainfall  each  year.  Even  Sahara  gets  its  occa- 
sional showers,  and  the  Colorado  and  the  Mo- 
jave  show  many  traces  of  the  cloud-burst.  The 
dark  thunder-clouds  that  occasionally  gather 
over  the  desert  seem  at  times  to  reserve  all  their 
stores  of  rain  for  one  place.  The  fall  is  usually 
short-lived  but  violent ;  and  its  greatest  force 
is  always  on  the  mountains.  There  is  no  sod, 
no  moss,  to  check  or  retard  the  flood  ;  and  the 
result  is  a  great  rush  of  water  to  the  low  places. 
In  the  canyons  the  swollen  streams  roll  down 
bowlders  that  weigh  tons,  and  in  the  ravines 
many  a  huge  barranca  is  formed  in  a  single 
hour  by  these  rushing  waters.  On  the  lomas 
and  sloping  valleys  they  are  not  less  destructive, 
running  in  swift  streams  down  the  hollows,  and 
whirling  stones,  sand,  and  torn  bushes  into  the 
old  river-beds. 

In  a  very  short  time  there  is  a  great  torrent 
pouring  down  the  valley — a  torrent  composed 
of  water,  sand,  and  gravel  in  about  equal  parts. 
It  is  a  yellow,  thick  stream  that  has  nothing  but 
disaster  for  the  man  or  beast  that  seeks  to  swim 
it.  Many  a  life  has  been  lost  there.  The  great 
onset  of  the  water  destroys  anything  like  buoy- 
ancy, and  the  tendency  is  to  drag  down  and 
roll  the  swimmer  like  a  bowlder.    Even  the 


Cloud- 
bursts, 


Canyon 
streams. 


Desert 
Jloods. 


34 


THE  DESERT 


No  running 
streams. 


enormous  strength  of  the  grizzly  bear  has  been 
known  to  fail  him  in  these  desert  rivers.  They 
boil  and  seethe  as  though  they  were  hot ;  and 
they  rush  on  against  banks,  ripping  out  the 
long  roots  of  mesquite,  and  swirling  away  tons 
of  undermined  gravel  as  though  it  were  only  so 
much  snow.  At  last  after  miles  of  this  mill- 
racing  the  force  begins  to  diminish,  the  streams 
reach  the  flat  lake-beds  and  spread  into  broad, 
thin  sheets ;  and  soon  tliey  have  totally  van- 
ished, leaving  scarce  a  rack  behind. 

The  desert  rainfall  comes  quickly  and  goes 
quickly.  The  sands  drink  it  up,  and  it  sinks 
to  the  rock  strata,  where,  following  the  ledges,  it 
is  finally  shelved  into  some  gravel-bed.  There, 
perhaps  a  hundred  feet  under  the  sand,  it  slow- 
ly oozes  away  to  the  river  or  the  Gulf.  There 
is  none  of  it  remains  upon  the  surface  except 
perhaps  a  pool  caught  in  a  clay  basin,  or  a 
catch  of  water  in  a  rocky  bowl  of  some  canyon. 
Occasionally  one  meets  with  a  little  stream 
where  a  fissure  in  the  rock  and  a  pressure  from 
below  forces  up  some  of  the  water ;  but  these 
springs  are  of  very  rare  occurrence.  And  they 
always  seem  a  little  strange.  A  brook  that  ran 
on  the  top  of  the  ground  would  be  an  anomaly 
here  ;  and  after  one  lives  many  months  on  the 


THE  MAKE  OF  THE  DESERT 


35 


desert  and  returns  to  a  well- watered  country, 
the  last  thing  he  becomes  accustomed  to  is  the 
sight  of  running  water. 

In  every  desert  there  are  isolated  places 
where  water  stands  in  pools,  fed  by  under- 
ground springs,  where  mesquite  and  palms 
grow,  and  where  there  is  a  show  of  coarse 
grass  over  some  acres.  These  are  the  so-called 
oases  in  the  waste  that  travellers  have  pictured 
as  Gardens  of  Paradise,  and  poets  have  used 
for  centuries  as  illustrations  of  happiness  sur- 
rounded by  despair.  To  tell  the  truth  they 
are  wretched  little  mud-holes  ;  and  yet  because 
of  their  few  trees  and  their  pockets  of  yellow 
brackish  water  they  have  an  appearance  of  un- 
reality. They  are  strange  because  bright-green 
foliage  and  moisture  of  any  kind  seem  out  of 
place  on  the  desert. 

Yet  surely  there  was  plenty  of  water  here  at 
one  time.  Everywhere  you  meet  with  the  dry 
lake-bed — its  flat  surface  devoid  of  life  and  of- 
ten glimmering  white  with  salt.  These  beds 
are  no  doubt  of  recent  origin  geologically,  and 
were  never  more  than  the  catch-basins  of  sur- 
face water ;  but  long  before  ever  they  were 
brought  forth  the  whole  area  of  the  desert 
was  under  the  sea.    To-day  one  may  find  on 


Oases  in  the 
waste. 


Catch' 
basins. 


36 


THE  DESERT 


the  high  table-lands  sea-shells  in  abundance. 
The  petrified  clams  are  precisely  like  the  live 
clams  that  one  picks  up  on  the  western  coast 
of  Mexico.  The  corals,  barnacles,  dried  sponge 
forms,  and  cellular  rocks  do  not  differ  from 
those  in  the  Gulf  of  California.  The  change 
from  sea  to  shore,  and  from  shore  to  table-land 
and  mountain,  no  doubt  took  place  very  slow- 
ly. Just  how  many  centuries  ago  who  shall 
say  ?  Geologists  may  guess  and  laymen  may 
doubt,  but  the  Keeper  of  the  Seals  says  noth- 
ing. 

Nor  is  it  known  just  when  the  porphyry 
mountains  were  roasted  to  a  dark  wine-red, 
and  the  foot-hills  burnt  to  a  terra-cotta  orange. 
Fire  has  been  at  work  here  as  well  as  wind 
and  water.  The  whole  country  has  a  burnt 
and  scorched  look  proceeding  from  something 
more  fiery  than  sunlight.  Volcanoes  have  left 
their  traces  everywhere.  You  can  still  see  the 
streams  of  lava  that  have  chilled  as  they  ran. 
The  blackened  cones  with  their  craters  exist ; 
and  about  them,  for  many  miles,  there  are 
great  lakes  and  streams  of  reddish-black  lava, 
frozen  in  swirls  and  pools,  cracked  like  glass, 
broken  into  blocks  like  a  ruined  pavement. 
Wherever  you  go  on  the  desert  you  meet  with 


THE  MAKE  OF  THE  DE8ERT 


37 


chips  and  breaks  of  lava,  showing  that  at  one 
time  there  must  have  been  quantities  of  it 
belched  out  of  the  volcanoes. 

There  were  convulsions  in  those  days  when 
the  sea  washed  close  to  the  bases  of  the  moun- 
tains. Through  the  crevasses  and  fissures  in  the 
rocks  the  water  crept  into  the  fires  of  the  earth, 
and  explosions — volcanic  eruptions — were  the 
result.  Wandering  over  these  stony  tracks  you 
might  fancy  that  all  strata  and  all  geological 
ages  were  blown  into  discord  by  those  explo- 
sions. For  here  are  many  kinds  of  splintered 
and  twisted  rocks — rocks  aqueous  and  igne- 
ous, gritstones,  conglomerates,  shales,  slates, 
syenite,  basalt.  And  everywhere  the  white 
coatings  of  carbonate  of  lime  that  look  as 
though  they  were  run  hot  from  a  puddling  fur- 
nace ;  and  the  dust  of  sulphur,  copper,  and 
iron  blown  upon  granite  as  though  oxidized  by 
fire. 

The  evidence  for  glaciers  is  not  so  convinc- 
ing. There  is  no  apparent  sign  of  an  ice  age. 
Occasionally  one  sees  scratches  upon  mountain 
walls  that  are  suspicious,  or  heaps  of  sand  and 
gravel  that  look  as  though  pushed  into  the 
small  valleys  by  some  huge  force.  And  again 
there  are  places  on  the  Mojave  where  windrows 


38 


THE   DESERT 


Land  tlips. 


ifnvement 
o/  stones. 


The  talus. 


of  heavy  bowlders  are  piled  on  either  side  of 
mountain  water-courses,  looking  as  though  ice 
may  have  caused  their  peculiar  placing.  But 
there  is  no  certainty  about  any  of  these.  Land 
slips  may  have  made  the  windrows  as  easily  as 
ice  slips  ;  and  water  can  heap  mounds  of  sand 
and  gravel  as  readily  as  glaciers.  One  cannot 
trace  the  geological  ages  with  such  facility. 
Things  sometimes  "just  happen,"  in  spite  of 
scientific  theories. 

Besides,  the  movement  of  the  stones  into  the 
valleys  is  going  on  continuously,  irrespective  of 
glaciers.  They  are  first  broken  from  the  peaks 
by  erosion,  and  then  they  fall  into  what  is  called 
a  talus — a  great  slope  of  stone  blocks  beginning 
half  way  down  the  mountain  and  often  reaching 
to  the  base  or  foot.  Many  of  them,  of  course, 
are  rolled  over  steep  declivities  into  the  canyons 
and  thence  carried  down  by  flood  waters ;  but 
the  talus  is  the  more  uniform  method  for  bowl- 
ders reaching  the  plain. 

In  the  first  stage  of  the  talus  the  blocks  are 
ragged-edged  and  as  large  as  a  barrel.  Nothing 
whatever  grows  upon  the  slope.  It  is  as  bare  as 
the  side  of  a  volcanic  crater.  And  just  as  diffi- 
cult to  walk  over.  The  talus  is  added  to  at  the 
top  by  the  falling  rock  of  the  face-wall,  and  it 


THE  MAKE  OP  THE  DESERT 


39 


is  losing  at  the  bottom  by  the  under  blocks 
grinding  away  to  stone  and  gravel.  The  flat- 
tening out  at  the  bottom,  the  breaking  up  of 
the  blocks,  and  the  push-out  of  the  mountain 
foot  upon  the  plain  is  the  second  stage  of  the 
talus.  In  almost  all  the  large  valleys  of  the 
desert  the  depressed  talus  extends,  sometimes 
miles  in  length,  out  from  the  foot  of  the  moun- 
tain range.  When  it  finally  slips  down  into  the 
valley  and  becomes  a  flat  floor  it  has  entered 
upon  its  third  and  last  stage.  It  is  then  the 
ordinary  valley-bed  covered  with  its  cactus  and 
cut  by  its  arroyos.  Yet  this  valley-floor  instead 
of  being  just  one  thing  is  really  many  things — 
or  rather  made  up  of  many  different  materials 
and  showing  many  different  surfaces. 

You  may  spend  days  and  weeks  studying  the 
make-up  of  these  desert-floors.  Beyond  Yuma 
on  the  Colorado  there  are  thousands  of  acres  of 
mosaic  pavement,  made  from  tiny  blocks  of 
jasper,  carnelian,  agate — a  pavement  of  pebbles 
so  hard  that  a  horse's  hoof  will  make  no  im- 
pression upon  it — wind-swept,  clean,  compact 
as  though  pressed  down  by  a  roller.  One  can 
imagine  it  made  by  the  winds  that  have  cut 
and  drifted  away  the  light  sands  and  allowed 
the  pebbles  to  settle  close  together  until  they 


Stages  of 
the  talus. 


Desert- 
floors. 


40 


THE  DESERT 


Sandstone 
blocks. 


SaUbedM, 


Sand-beds. 


have  become  wedged  in  a  solid  surface.  For  no 
known  reason  other  portions  of  the  desert  are 
covered  with  blocks  of  red-incrusted  sandstone 
— the  incrustation  being  only  above  the  sand- 
line.  In  the  lake-beds  there  is  usually  a  surface 
of  fine  silt.  It  is  not  a  hard  surface  though  it 
often  has  a  crust  upon  it  that  a  wild  cat  can 
walk  upon,  but  a  horse  or  a  man  would  pound 
through  as  easily  as  through  crusted  snow. 
The  salt-beds  are  of  sporadic  appearance  and 
hardly  count  as  normal  features  of  the  desert. 
They  are  often  quite  beautiful  in  appearance. 
The  one  on  the  Colorado  near  Salton  is  hard  as 
ice,  white,  and  after  sunset  it  often  turns  blue, 
yellow,  or  crimson,  dependent  upon  the  sky 
overhead  which  it  reflects.  Borax  and  gypsum- 
beds  are  even  scarcer  than  the  salt-beds.  They 
are  also  white  and  often  very  brilliant  reflectors 
of  the  sky.  The  sand-beds  are,  of  course,  more 
frequently  met  with  than  any  others  ;  and  yet 
your  horse  does  not  go  knee-deep  in  sand  for 
any  great  distance.  It  is  too  light,  and  is 
drifted  too  easily  by  the  winds.  Bowlders, 
gravel,  and  general  mountain  wash  is  the  most 
common  flooring  of  all. 

The  mountains  whence  all  the  wash  comes, 
are  mere  ranges  of  rock.    In  the  canyons,  where 


THE  MAKE  OF  THE  DESERT 


41 


there  is  perhaps  some  underground  water,  there 
are  occasionally  found  trees  and  large  bushes, 
and  the  very  high  sierras  have  forests  of  pine 
belted  about  their  tops  ;  but  usually  the  desert 
ranges  are  barren.  They  never  bore  fruit.  The 
washings  from  them  are  grit  and  fry  of  rock 
but  no  vegetable  mould.  The  black  dirt  that 
lies  a  foot  or  more  in  depth  upon  the  surface  of 
the  eastern  prairies,  showing  the  many  years 
accumulations  of  decayed  grasses  and  weeds,  is 
not  known  anywhere  on  the  desert.  The  slight 
vegetation  that  grows  never  has  a  chance  to  turn 
into  mould.  And  besides,  nothing  ever  rots  or 
decays  in  these  sands.  Iron  will  not  rust,  nor 
tin  tarnish,  nor  flesh  mortify.  The  grass  and 
the  shrub  wither  and  are  finally  cut  into  pieces 
by  flying  sands.  Sometimes  you  may  see  small 
particles  of  grass  or  twigs  heaped  about  an  ant- 
hill, or  find  them  a  part  of  a  bird's  nest  in  a 
cholla ;  but  usually  they  turn  to  dry  dust  and 
blow  with  the  wind — at  the  wind's  will. 

The  desert  mountains  gathered  in  clusters 
along  the  waste,  how  old  and  wrinkled,  how  set 
and  determined  they  look !  Somehow  they 
remind  you  of  a  clenched  hand  with  the 
knuckles  turned  skyward.  They  have  strength 
and  bulk,  the  suggestion  of  quiescent  force. 


Mountain 
vegetation. 


Withered 
grasses. 


42 


THE   DESERT 


Barren 
rock. 


Moun.tain 
colors. 


Saw-toothed 
ridges. 


Barren  rock  and  nothing  more  ;  but  what  could 
better  epitomize  power !  The  heave  of  the 
enormous  ridge,  the  loom  of  the  domed  top, 
the  bulk  and  body  of  the  whole  are  colossal. 
Rising  as  they  do  from  flat  sands  they  give  the 
impression  of  things  deep-based — veritable  isl- 
ands of  porphyry  bent  upward  from  a  yellow 
sea.  They  are  so  weather-stained,  so  worn, 
that  they  are  not  bright  in  coloring.  Usually 
they  assume  a  dull  garnet-red,  or  the  red  of 
peroxide  of  iron ;  but  occasionally  at  sunset 
they  warm  in  color  and  look  fire-red  through 
the  pink  haze. 

The  more  abrupt  ranges  that  appear  younger 
because  of  their  saw-toothed  ridges  and  broken 
peaks,  are  often  much  finer  in  coloring.  They 
have  needles  that  are  lifted  skyward  like  Mos- 
lem minarets  or  cathedral  spires  ;  and  at  even- 
ing, if  there  is  a  yellow  light,  they  shine  like 
brazen  spear-points  set  against  the  sky.  It  is 
astonishing  that  dull  rock  can  disclose  such 
marvellous  coloring.  The  coloring  is  not  local 
in  the  rock,  nor  yet  again  entirely  reflected. 
Desert  atmosphere,  with  which  we  shall  have  to 
reckon  hereafter,  has  much  to  do  with  it. 

And  whether  at  sunset,  at  sunrise,  or  at  mid- 
night, how  like  watch-towers  these  mountains 


THE  MAKE   OF  THE   DESERT 


43 


stand  above  the  waste  !  One  can  almost  fancy 
that  behind  each  dome  and  rampart  there  are 
cloud-like  Genii — spirits  of  the  desert — keeping 
guard  over  this  kingdom  of  the  sun.  And  what 
a  far-reaching  kingdom  they  watch  !  Plain  upon 
plain  leads  up  and  out  to  the  horizon — far  as  the 
eye  can  see — in  undulations  of  gray  and  gold  ; 
ridge  upon  ridge  melts  into  the  blue  of  the 
distant  sky  in  lines  of  lilac  and  purple  ;  fold 
upon  fold  over  the  mesas  the  hot  air  drops  its 
veilings  of  opal  and  topaz.  Yes ;  it  is  the 
kingdom  of  sun-fire.  For  every  color  in  the 
scale  is  attuned  to  the  key  of  flame,  every  air- 
wave comes  with  the  breath  of  flame,  every 
sunbeam  falls  as  a  shaft  of  flame.  There  is 
no  questioning  who  is  sovereign  in  these  do- 
minions. 


Seen  from 
the  peaks. 


Sun-fire 
kingdom. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  BOTTOM  OF  THE  BOWL 


Early 

geological 

days. 


The  former 


In  the  ancient  days  when  the  shore  of  the 
Pacific  was  young,  when  the  white  sierras  had 
only  recently  been  heaved  upward  and  the  des- 
ert itself  was  in  a  formative  stage,  the  ocean 
reached  much  farther  inland  than  at  the  pres- 
ent time.  It  pushed  through  many  a  pass  and 
flooded  many  a  depression  in  the  sands,  as  its 
wave-marks  upon  granite  bases  and  its  numer- 
ous beaches  still  bear  witness.  In  those  days 
that  portion  of  the  Colorado  Desert  known  as 
the  Salton  Basin  did  not  exist.  The  Gulf  of 
California  extended  as  far  north  as  the  San 
Bernardino  Range  and  as  far  west  as  the  Pass 
of  San  Gorgonio.  Its  waters  stood  deep  where 
now  lies  the  road-bed  of  the  Southern  Pacific 
railway,  and  all  the  country  from  Indio  almost 
to  the  Colorado  River  was  a  blue  sea.  The 
Bowl  was  full.  No  one  knew  if  it  had  a  bot- 
tom or  imagined  that  it  would  ever  be  emptied 
of  water  and  given  over  to  the  drifting  sands. 
44 


THE  BOTTOM  OF  THE  BOWL 


45 


No  doubt  the  tenure  of  the  sea  in  this  Salton 
Basin  was  of  long  duration.  The  sand-dunes 
still  standing  along  the  northern  shore — fifty 
feet  high  and  shining  like  hills  of  chalk — 
were  not  made  in  a  month ;  nor  was  the  long 
shelving  beach  beneath  them — still  covered 
with  sea-shells  and  pebbles  and  looking  as 
though  washed  by  the  waves  only  yesterday — 
formed  in  a  day.  Both  dunes  and  beach  are 
plainly  visible  winding  across  the  desert  for 
many  miles.  The  southwestern  shore,  stretch- 
ing under  a  spur  of  the  Coast  Range,  shows  the 
same  formation  in  its  beach -line.  The  old 
bays  and  lagoons  that  led  inland  from  the  sea, 
the  river-beds  that  brought  down  the  surface 
waters  from  the  mountains,  the  inlets  and  nat- 
ural harbors  are  all  in  place.  Some  of  them 
are  drifted  half  full  of  sand,  but  they  have  not 
lost  their  identity.  And  out  in  the  sea-bed 
still  stand  masses  of  cellular  rock,  honeycombed 
and  water- worn  (and  now  for  many  years  wind- 
worn),  showing  the  places  where  once  rose  the 
reefs  of  the  ancient  sea. 

These  are  the  only  records  that  tell  of  the 
sea's  occupation.  The  Indians  have  no  tra- 
dition about  it.  Yet  when  the  sea  was  there 
the  Indian  tribes  were  there  also.     Along  the 


Sea-beaches 
on  desert. 


Harbors 
and  reefs. 


46 


THE  DESERT 


bases  of  the  San  Bernardino  and  San  Jacinto 
Ranges  there  are  indications  of  cave-dwelling, 
rock-built  squares  that  doubtless  were  fortified 
camps,  heaps  of  stone  that  might  have  been 
burial-mounds.  Everywhere  along  the  ancient 
shores  and  beaches  you  pick  up  pieces  of  pot- 
tery, broken  ollas,  stone  pestels  and  mortars, 
aie  -  heads,  obsidian  arrow  -  heads,  flint  spear- 
points,  agate  beads.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  the  shores  were  inhabited.  It  was 
a  warm  nook,  accessible  to  the  mountains  and 
the  Pacific ;  in  fact,  just  the  place  where 
tribes  would  naturally  gather.  Branches  of 
the  Yuma  Indians,  like  the  Cocopas,  overran 
all  this  country  when  the  Padres  first  crossed 
the  desert ;  and  it  was  probably  their  fore- 
fathers who  lived  by  the  shores  of  this  Upper 
Gulf.  No  doubt  they  were  fishermen,  traders 
and  fighters,  like  their  modem  representatives 
on  Tiburon  Island  ;  and  no  doubt  they  fished 
and  fought  and  were  happy  by  the  shores  of 
the  mountain-locked  sea. 

But  there  came  a  time  when  there  was  a  dis- 
turbance of  the  existing  conditions  in  the  Up- 
per Gulf.  Century  after  century  the  Colorado 
River  had  been  carrying  down  to  the  sea  its 
burden  of  sedimental  sand  and  silt.     It  had 


THE  BOTTOM   OF  THE  BOWL 


47 


been  entering  the  Gulf  far  down  on  the  eastern 
side  at  an  acute  angle.  Gradually  its  deposits 
had  been  building  up,  banking  up  ;  and  grad- 
ually the  river  had  been  pushing  them  out  and 
across  the  Gulf  in  a  southwesterly  direction. 
Finally  there  was  formed  a  delta  dam  stretch- 
ing from  shore  to  shore.  The  tides  no  longer 
brought  water  up  and  around  the  bases  of  the 
big  mountains.  Communication  with  the  sea 
was  cut  off  and  what  was  once  the  top  of  the 
Gulf  changed  into  an  inland  lake.  It  now  had 
no  water  supply  from  below,  it  lay  under  a 
burning  sun,  and  day  by  day  evaporation  car- 
ried it  away. 

No  one  knows  how  many  days,  how  many 
years,  elapsed  before  the  decrease  of  the  water 
became  noticeable.  Doubtless  the  lake  shrunk 
away  slowly  from  tHe  white  face  of  the  sand- 
dunes  and  the  red  walls  of  the  mountains. 
The  river-mouths  that  opened  into  the  lake 
narrowed  themselves  to  small  stream -beds. 
The  shelving  beaches  where  the  waves  had 
fallen  lazily  year  after  year,  pushing  themselves 
over  the  sand  in  beautiful  water-mirrors,  shone 
bare  and  dry  in  the  sunlight.  The  ragged 
reefs,  over  which  the  chop  sea  had  tumbled 
and  tossed  so  long,  lifted  their  black  hulks  out 


The  delta 
dam. 


The  inland 
lake. 


48 


THE  DESERT 


The  first 
fall. 


Springs 
and  ivdls  in 
Uu  seorbsd. 


The.  New 
Jiiver, 


of  the  water  and  with  their  hosts  of  barnacles 
iind  sea-life  became  a  part  of  the  land. 

The  waters  of  the  great  inland  lake  fell  per- 
haps a  hundred  feet  and  then  they  made  a  pause. 
The  exposed  shores  dried  out.  They  baked  hard 
in  the  sun,  and  were  slowly  ground  down  to  sand 
and  powdered  silt  by  the  action  of  the  winds. 
The  waters  made  a  long  pause.  They  were  re- 
ceiving reinforcements  from  some  source.  Pos- 
sibly there  was  more  rainfall  in  those  days  than 
now,  and  the  streams  entering  the  lake  from 
the  mountains  were  much  larger.  Again  there 
may  have  been  underground  springs.  There 
are  flowing  wells  to-day  in  this  old  sea-bed — 
wells  that  cast  up  water  Salter  than  the  sea  it- 
self. No  one  knows  their  fountain-head.  Per- 
haps by  underground  channels  the  water  creeps 
through  from  the  Gulf,  or  comes  from  mountain 
reservoirs  and  turns  saline  by  passing  through 
beds  of  salt.  These  are  the  might-bes  ;  but  it 
is  far  more  probable  that  the  Colorado  Kiver  at 
high  water  had  made  a  breach  of  some  kind  in 
the  dam  of  its  own  construction  and  had  poured 
overflow  water  into  the  lake  by  way  of  a  dry 
channel  called  the  New  River.  The  bed  of  this 
river  runs  northward  from  below  the  boundary- 
line  of  Lower  California  ;  and  in  1893,  during 


THE  BOTTOM   OF  THE  BOWL 


49 


a  rise  in  the  Colorado,  the  waters  rushed  in  and 
flooded  the  whole  of  what  is  called  the  Salton 
Basin.  When  the  Colorado  receded,  the  basin 
soon  dried  out  again. 

It  was  undoubtedly  some  accident  of  this 
kind  that  called  the  halt  in  the  original  reces- 
sion. During  the  interim  the  lake  had  time  to 
form  new  shores  where  the  waves  pounded  and 
washed  on  the  gravel  as  before  until  miles  upon 
miles  of  new  beach — pebbled,  shelled,  and  slop- 
ing downward  with  great  uniformity — came  into 
existence.  This  secondary  beach  is  intact  to- 
day and  looks  precisely  like  the  primary  except 
that  it  is  not  quite  so  large.  Across  the  basin, 
along  the  southern  mountains,  the  second  water- 
tracery  is  almost  as  apparent  as  the  first.  The 
rocks  are  eaten  in  long  lines  by  wave-action, 
and  are  honeycombed  by  the  ceaseless  energies 
of  the  zoophite. 

Nor  was  the  change  in  beach  and  rock  alone. 
New  bays  and  harbors  were  cut  out  from  where 
the  sea  had  been,  new  river  -  channels  were 
opened  down  to  the  shrunken  lake,  new  lagoons 
were  spread  over  the  flat  places.  Nature  evi- 
dently made  a  great  effort  to  repair  the  damage 
and  adapt  the  lake  to  its  new  conditions.  And 
the  Indians,  too,  accepted  the  change.     There 


Neip 
beaches. 


The  second 

fall. 


60 


THE  DESERT 


are  many  indications  in  broken  pottery,  arrow- 
heads, and  mortars  that  the  aboriginal  tribes 
moved  down  to  the  new  beach  and  built  wick- 
iups by  the  diminished  waters.  And  the  old 
fishing-foraging-fighting  life  was  probably  re- 
sumed. 

Then  once  more  the  waters  went  down,  down, 
down.  Step  by  step  they  receded  until  the  sec- 
ondary beach  was  left  a  hundred  feet  above  the 
water  level.  Again  there  was  a  pause.  Again 
new  beaches  were  beaten  into  shape  by  the 
waves,  new  bays  were  opened,  new  arroyos  cut 
through  from  above.  The  whole  process  of 
shore-making^-the  fitting  of  the  land  to  the 
shrunken  proportions  of  the  lake  —  was  gone 
through  with  for  the  third  time  ;  while  the 
water  supply  from  the  river  or  elsewhere  was 
maintained  in  decreased  volume  but  with  some 
steadiness  of  flow.  Possibly  the  third  halt  of 
the  receding  water  was  not  for  a  great  length  of 
time.  The  tertiary  beach  is  not  so  large  as  its 
predecessors.  There  never  was  any  strong  wave- 
action  upon  it,  its  pebbles  are  few,  its  faults 
and  breaks  are  many.  The  water  supply  was 
failing,  and  finally  it  ceased  altogether. 

What  fate  for  a  lake  in  the  desert  receiving 
no  supplies  from  river  or  sea — what  fate  save 


THE  BOTTOM  OF  THE  BOWL 


51 


annihilation  ?  The  hot  breath  of  the  wind  blew 
across  the  cramped  water  and  whipped  its  sur- 
face into  little  waves ;  and  as  each  tiny  point 
of  spray  rose  on  the  crest  and  was  lifted  into 
the  air  the  fiery  sunbeam  caught  it,  and  in  a 
twinkling  had  evaporated  and  carried  it  up- 
ward. Day  by  day  this  process  went  on  over 
the  whole  surface  until  there  was  no  more  sea. 
The  hollow  reefs  rose  high  and  dark  above  the 
bed,  the  flat  shoals  of  silt  lifted  out  of  the  ooze, 
and  down  in  the  lowest  pools  there  was  the 
rush  and  plunge  of  monster  tortuabas,  sharks 
and  porpoises,  caught  as  it  were  in  a  net  and 
vainly  struggling  to  get  out.  How  strange  must 
have  seemed  that  landscape  when  the  low  ridges 
were  shining  with  the  slime  of  the  sea,  when 
the  beds  were  strewn  with  algce,  sponges,  and 
coral,  and  the  shores  were  whitening  with  salt ! 
How  strange,  indeed,  must  have  been  the  first 
sight  of  the  Bottom  of  the  Bowl ! 

But  the  sun  never  relaxed  its  fierce  heat  nor 
the  wind  its  hot  breath.  They  scorched  and 
burned  the  silt  of  the  sea-bed  until  it  baked 
and  cracked  into  blocks.  Then  began  the  wear 
of  the  winds  upon  the  broken  edges  until  the 
blocks  were  reduced  to  dry  fine  powder.  Fi- 
nally the  desert  came  in.     Drifts  upon  drifts  of 


Evapo- 
ration, 


Bottom  of 
the  Bowl. 


Drying  out 
of  the  sea- 
bed. 


52 


THE  DESERT 


Advance  of 
desert. 


Below 
btXL-levd. 


Denolation 
of  the  basin. 


sand  blown  through  the  valleys  settled  in  the 
empty  basin ;  gravel  and  bowlder- wash  came 
down  from  the  mountains  ;  the  grease -wood, 
the  salt-bush,  and  the  so-called  pepper-grass 
sprang  up  in  isolated  spots.  Slowly  the  desert 
fastened  itself  upon  the  basin.  Its  heat  became 
too  intense  to  allow  the  falling  rain  to  reach 
the  earth,  its  surface  was  too  salt  and  alkaline 
to  allow  of  much  vegetation,  it  could  support 
neither  animal  nor  bird  life ;  it  became  more 
deserted  than  the  desert  itself. 

And  thus  it  remains  to  this  day.  When  you 
are  in  the  bottom  of  it  you  are  nearly  three 
hundred  feet  below  the  level  of  the  sea.  Cir- 
cling about  you  to  the  north,  south,  and  west 
are  sierras,  some  of  them  over  ten  thousand  feet 
in  height.  These  form  the  Rim  of  the  Bowl. 
And  off  to  the  southwest  there  is  a  side  broken 
out  of  the  Bowl  through  which  you  can  pass 
to  the  river  and  the  Gulf.  The  basin  is  perhaps 
the  hottest  place  to  be  found  anywhere  on  the 
American  deserts.  And  it  is  also  the  most  for- 
saken. The  bottom  itself  is,  for  the  great  part 
of  it,  as  flat  as  a  table.  It  looks  like  a  great 
plain  leading  up  and  out  to  the  horizon — a 
plain  that  has  been  ploughed  and  rolled  smooth. 
The  soil  is  drifted  silt — the  deposits  made  by 


THE  BOTTOM   OF  THE  BOWL 


53 


the  washings  from  the  mountains  —  and  is 
almost  as  fine  as  flour. 

The  long  line  of  dunes  at  the  north  are  just 
as  desolate,  yet  they  are  wonderfully  beautiful. 
The  desert  sand  is  finer  than  snow,  and  its 
curves  and  arches,  as  it  builds  its  succession  of 
drifts  out  and  over  an  arroyo,  are  as  graceful  as 
the  lines  of  running  water.  The  dunes  are  al- 
ways rhythmical  and  flowing  in  their  forms ; 
and  for  color  the  desert  has  nothing  that  sur- 
passes them.  In  the  early  morning,  before  the 
sun  is  up,  they  are  air-blue,  reflecting  the  sky 
overhead ;  at  noon  they  are  pale  lines  of  daz- 
zling orange-colored  light,  waving  and  undulat- 
ing in  the  heated  air  ;  at  sunset  they  are  often 
flooded  with  a  rose  or  mauve  color ;  under  a 
blue  moonlight  they  shine  white  as  icebergs  in 
the  northern  seas. 

But  neither  the  dunes  nor  the  flats  grow 
vegetation  of  consequence.  About  the  high 
edges,  up  near  the  mountain  slopes,  you  find 
growths  of  mesquite,  palo  verde,  and  cactus ; 
but  down  in  the  basin  there  are  many  miles 
where  no  weed  or  grass  breaks  the  level  uni- 
formity. Not  even  the  salt-bush  will  grow  in 
some  of  the  areas.  And  this  is  not  due  to 
poverty  of  soil  but  to  absence  of  water  and 


54 


THE  DESERT 


Desert 
animala  in 
the  baain. 


Birds. 


Lizards 
and  snakes. 


intense  heat.  Plants  cannot  live  by  sunlight 
alone. 

Nor  will  the  desert  animals  inhabit  an  abso- 
lute waste.  The  coyote  and  the  wild  cat  do  not 
relish  life  in  this  dip  in  the  earth.  They  care 
little  for  heat  and  drouth,  but  the  question  of 
food  appeals  to  them.  There  is  nothing  to  eat. 
Even  the  abstemious  jack-rabbit  finds  living 
here  something  of  a  difficulty.  Many  kinds  of 
tracks  are  found  in  the  uncrusted  silt — tracks 
of  coyotes,  gray  wolves,  sometimes  mountain 
lions — but  they  all  run  in  straight  trails,  show- 
ing the  animals  to  be  crossing  the  basin  to  the 
mountains,  not  prowling  or  hunting.  So,  too, 
you  will  occasionally  find  birds — linnets,  bobo- 
links, mocking-birds,  larks — but  they  are  seen 
one  at  a  time,  and  they  look  weary  like  land 
birds  far  out  at  sea  that  seek  a  resting-place  on 
passing  vessels.  They  do  not  belong  to  the 
desert  and  are  only  stopping  there  temporarily 
on  some  long  flight.  Snakes  and  lizards  are  not 
particular  about  their  abiding-place,  and  yet 
they  do  not  care  to  live  in  a  land  where  there 
is  no  bush  or  stone  to  creep  under.  You  meet 
with  them  very  seldom.  Practically  there  is  no 
life  of  any  kind  that  is  native  to  the  place. 

Is  there  any  beauty,  other  than  the  dunes^ 


THE  BOTTOM   OF  THE  BOWL 


55 


down  in  this  hollow  of  the  desert  ?  Yes. 
From  a  picturesque  point  of  view  it  has  the 
most  wonderful  light,  air,  and  color  imaginable. 
You  will  not  think  so  until  you  see  them 
blended  in  that  strange  illusion  known  as 
mirage.  And  here  is  the  one  place  in  all  the 
world  where  the  water-mirage  appears  to  per- 
fection. It  does  not  show  well  over  grassy  or 
bushy  ground,  but  over  the  flat  lake-beds  of  the 
desert  its  appearance  is  astonishing.  Down  in 
the  basin  it  is  accompanied  by  a  second  illusion 
that  makes  the  first  more  convincing.  You 
are  below  sea-level,  but  instead  of  the  ground 
about  you  sloping  up  and  out,  it  apparently 
slopes  down  and  away  on  every  side.  You  are 
in  the  centre  of  a  disk  or  high  point  of  ground, 
and  around  the  circumference  of  the  disk  is 
water — palpable,  almost  tangible,  water.  It 
cannot  be  seen  well  from  your  horse,  and  fifty 
feet  up  on  a  mountain  side  it  would  not  be 
visible  at  all.  But  dismount  and  yon  see  it 
better  ;  kneel  down  and  place  your  cheek  to  the 
ground  and  now  the  water  seems  to  creep  up  to 
you.  You  could  throw  a  stone  into  it.  The 
shore  where  the  waves  lap  is  just  before  you. 
But  where  is  the  horizon-line  ?  Odd  enough, 
this  vast  circling  sea  does  not  always  know  a 


Mirage. 


The  water 
iUtision. 


56 


THE  DESERT 


Decorative 
landscapes. 


SenftHous 
(qualities  in 
nature. 


horizon ;  it  sometimes  reaches  np  and  blends 
into  the  sky  without  any  point  of  demarcation. 
Through  the  heated  air  you  see  faint  outlines  of 
mountains,  dim  glimpses  of  foot-hills,  sugges- 
tions of  distance  ;  but  no  more.  Across  them 
is  drawn  the  wavering  veil  of  air,  and  the  red 
earth  at  your  feet,  the  blue  sky  overhead,  are 
but  bordering  bands  of  flat  color. 

And  there  you  have  the  most  decorative  land- 
scape in  the  world,  a  landscape  all  color,  a  dream 
landscape.  Painters  for  years  have  been  trying 
to  put  it  upon  canvas — this  landscape  of  color, 
light,  and  air,  with  form  almost  obliterated, 
merely  suggested,  given  only  as  a  hint  of  the 
mysterious.  Men  like  Corot  and  Monet  have 
told  us,  again  and  again,  that  in  painting,  clearly 
delineated  forms  of  mountains,  valleys,  trees, 
and  rivers,  kill  the  fine  color-sentiment  of  the 
picture.  The  great  struggle  of  the  modern 
landscapist  is  to  get  on  with  the  least  possible 
form  and  to  suggest  everything  by  tones  of  color, 
shades  of  light,  drifts  of  air.  Why  ?•  Because 
these  are  the  most  sensuous  qualities  in  nature 
and  in  art.  The  landscape  that  is  the  simplest 
in  form  and  the  finest  in  color  is  by  all  odds  the 
most  beautiful.  It  is  owing  to  just  these  feat- 
ures that  this  Bowl  of  the  desert  is  a  thing  of 


THE  BOTTOM   OF  THE  BOWL 


67 


beauty  instead  of  a  dreary  hollow  in  the  hills. 
Only  one  other  scene  is  comparable  to  it,  and 
that  the  southern  seas  at  sunset  when  the  calm 
ocean  reflects  and  melts  into  the  color-glory  of 
the  sky.  It  is  the  same  kind  of  beauty.  Form 
is  almost  blurred  out  in  favor  of  color  and  air. 

Yet  here  is  more  beauty  destined  to  destruc- 
tion. It  might  be  thought  that  this  forsaken 
pot-hole  in  the  ground  would  never  come  under 
the  dominion  of  man,  that  its  very  worthlessness 
would  be  its  safeguard  against  civilization,  that 
none  would  want  it,  and  everyone  from  necessity 
would  let  it  alone.  But  not  even  the  spot  de- 
serted by  reptiles  shall  escape  the  industry  or  the 
avarice  (as  you  please)  of  man.  A  great  company 
has  been  formed  to  turn  the  Colorado  Eiver 
into  the  sands,  to  reclaim  this  desert  basin,  and 
make  it  blossom  as  the  rose.  The  water  is  to 
be  brought  down  to  the  basin  by  the  old  channel 
of  the  New  Eiver.  Once  in  reservoirs  it  is  to  be 
distributed  over  the  tract  by  irrigating  ditches, 
and  it  is  said  a  million  acres  of  desert  will  thus 
be  made  arable,  fitted  for  homesteads,  ready  for 
the  settler  who  never  remains  settled. 

A  most  laudable  enterprise,  people  will  say. 
Yes ;  commercially  no  one  can  find  fault  with 
it.     Money  made  from  sand  is  likely  to  be  clean 


Chart  (jing 
the  desert. 


Irrigation 
in  the  basiri 


58 


THE  DESERT 


money,  at  any  rate.  And  economically  these 
acres  will  produce  large  supplies  of  food.  That 
is  commendable,  too,  even  if  those  for  whom  it 
is  produced  waste  a  good  half  of  what  they 
already  possess.  And  yet  the  food  that  is  pro- 
duced there  may  prove  expensive  to  people 
other  than  the  producers.  This  old  sea-bed  is, 
for  its  area,  probably  the  greatest  dry-heat 
generator  in  the  world  because  of  its  depression 
and  its  barren,  sandy  surface.  It  is  a  furnace 
that  whirls  heat  up  and  out  of  the  Bowl,  over 
the  peaks  of  the  Coast  Kange  into  Southern 
California,  and  eastward  across  the  plains  to 
Arizona  and  Sonora.  In  what  measure  it  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  general  climate  of  those  States 
cannot  be  accurately  summarized  ;  but  it  cer- 
tainly has  a  great  influence,  especially  in  the 
matter  of  producing  dry  air.  To  turn  this 
desert  into  an  agricultural  tract  would  be  to 
increase  humidity,  and  that  would  be  practi- 
cally to  nullify  the  finest  air  on  the  continent. 

And  why  are  not  good  air  and  climate  as  es- 
sential to  human  well-being  as  good  beef  and 
good  bread  ?  Just  now,  when  it  is  a  world  too 
late,  our  Government  and  the  forestry  societies 
of  the  country  are  awakening  to  the  necessity 
of  preserving  the  forests.     National  parks  are 


THE  BOTTOM   OF  THE   BOWL 


59 


being  created  wherever  possible  and  the  cutting 
of  timber  within  them  is  prohibited.  Why  is 
this  being  done  ?  Ostensibly  to  preserve  the 
trees,  but  in  reality  to  preserve  the  water  sup- 
ply, to  keep  the  fountain-heads  pure,  to  main- 
tain a  uniform  stage  of  water  in  the  rivers. 
Very  proper  and  right.  The  only  pity  is  that 
it  was  not  undertaken  forty  years  ago.  But 
how  is  the  water  supply,  from  an  economic  and 
hygienic  stand-point,  any  more  important  than 
the  air  supply  ? 

Grasses,  trees,  shrubs,  growing  grain,  they, 
too,  may  need  good  air  as  well  as  human  lungs. 
The  deserts  are  not  worthless  wastes.  You 
cannot  crop  all  creation  with  wheat  and  alfal- 
fa. Some  sections  must  lie  fallow  that  other 
sections  may  produce.  Who  shall  say  that  the 
preternatural  productiveness  of  California  is 
not  due  to  the  warm  air  of  its  surrounding  des- 
erts ?  Does  anyone  doubt  that  the  healthful- 
ness  of  the  countries  lying  west  of  the  Mississ- 
ippi may  be  traced  directly  to  the  dry  air  and 
heat  of  the  deserts.  They  furnish  health  to 
the  human ;  why  not  strength  to  the  plant  ? 
The  deserts  should  never  be  reclaimed.  They 
are  the  breathing-spaces  of  the  west  and  should 
be  preserved  forever. 


Valw  of  tJie 
air  supply. 


Value  of  the 
deterts. 


60 


THE  DESERT 


Destruetion 
of  natural 
beauty. 


Effects  of 
luining, 
lumbenng, 
agriculture. 


To  speak  about  sparing  anything  because  it 
is  beautiful  is  to  waste  one's  breath  and  incur 
ridicule  in  the  bargain.  The  aesthetic  sense — 
the  power  to  enjoy  through  the  eye,  the  ear, 
and  the  imagination — is  just  as  important  a 
factor  in  the  scheme  of  human  happiness  as 
the  corporeal  sense  of  eating  and  drinking ;  but 
there  has  never  been  a  time  when  the  world 
would  admit  it.  The  "practical  men,''  who 
seem  forever  on  the  throne,  know  very  well 
that  beauty  is  only  meant  for  lovers  and  young 
persons — stufi  to  suckle  fools  withal.  The 
main  affair  of  life  is  to  get  the  dollar,  and  if 
there  is  any  money  in  cutting  the  throat  of 
Beauty,  why,  by  all  means,  cut  her  throat.  That 
is  what  the  "  practical  men "  have  been  doing 
ever  since  the  world  began.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  dig  up  ancient  history  ;  for  have  we  not 
seen,  here  in  California  and  Oregon,  in  our 
own  time,  the  destruction  of  the  fairest  valleys 
the  sun  ever  shone  upon  by  placer  and  hy- 
draulic mining  ?  Have  we  not  seen  in  Minne- 
sota and  Wisconsin  the  mightiest  forests  that 
ever  raised  head  to  the  sky  slashed  to  pieces 
by  the  axe  and  turned  into  a  waste  of  tree- 
stumps  and  fallen  timber  ?  Have  we  not  seen 
the  Upper  Mississippi,  by  the  destruction  of 


THE  BOTTOM   OF  THE  BOWL 


61 


the  forests,  changed  from  a  broad,  majestic 
river  into  a  shallow,  muddy  stream  ;  and  the 
beautiful  prairies  of  Dakota  turned  under  by 
the  plough  and  then  allowed  to  run  to  weeds  ? 
Men  must  have  coal  though  they  ruin  the  val- 
leys and  blacken  the  streams  of  Pennsylvania, 
they  must  have  oil  though  they  disfigure  half 
of  Ohio  and  Indiana,  they  must  have  copper 
if  they  wreck  all  the  mountains  of  Montana 
and  Arizona,  and  they  must  have  gold  though 
they  blow  Alaska  into  the  Behring  Sea.  It  is 
more  than  possible  that  the  '^  practical  men'^ 
have  gained  much  practice  and  many  dol- 
lars by  flaying  the  fair  face  of  these  United 
States.  They  have  stripped  the  land  of  its 
robes  of  beauty,  and  what  have  they  given  in 
its  place  ?  Weeds,  wire  fences,  oil-derricks, 
board  shanties  and  board  towns — things  that 
not  even  a  ''practical  man''  can  do  less  than 
curse  at. 

And  at  last  they  have  turned  to  the  desert  ! 
It  remains  to  be  seen  what  they  will  do  with  it. 
Reclaiming  a  waste  may  not  be  so  easy  as  break- 
ing a  prairie  or  cutting  down  a  forest.  And 
Nature  will  not  always  be  driven  from  her 
purpose.  Wind,  sand,  and  heat  on  Sahara 
have  proven  hard  forces  to  fight  against ;  they 


62 


THE  DESERT 


Nature 
eternal. 


Betumof 
desolation. 


may  prove  no  less  potent  on  the  Colorado. 
And  sooner  or  later  Nature  will  surely  come  to 
her  own  again.  Nothing  human  is  of  long  du- 
ration. Men  and  their  deeds  are  obliterated, 
the  race  itself  fades  ;  but  Nature  goes  calmly 
on  with  her  projects.  She  works  not  for  man's 
enjoyment,  but  for  her  own  satisfaction  and  her 
own  glory.  She  made  the  fat  lands  of  the 
earth  with  all  their  fruits  and  flowers  and  fo- 
liage ;  and  with  no  less  care  she  made  the  des- 
ert with  its  sands  and  cacti.  She  intended 
that  each  should  remain  as  she  made  it.  AVhen 
the  locust  swarm  has  passed,  the  flowers  and 
grasses  will  return  to  the  valley;  when  man 
is  gone,  the  sand  and  the  heat  will  come  back 
to  the  desert.  The  desolation  of  the  kingdom 
will  live  again,  and  down  in  the  Bottom  of 
the  Bowl  the  opalescent  mirage  will  waver 
skyward  on  wings  of  light,  serene  in  its  sol- 
itude, though  no  human  eye  sees  nor  human 
tongue  speaks  its  loveliness. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  SILENT  KIVER 

The  career  of  the  Colorado,  from  its  rise  in 
the  Wind  River  Mountains  in  Wyoming  to  its 
final  disappearance  in  the  Gulf  of  California, 
seems  almost  tragic  in  its  swift  transitions.  It 
starts  out  so  cheerily  upon  its  course ;  it  is  so 
clear  and  pure,  so  sparkling  with  sunshine  and 
spirit.  It  dashes  down  mountain  valleys,  gur- 
gles under  bowlders,  swirls  over  waterfalls, 
flashes  through  ravines  and  gorges.  With  its 
sweep  and  glide  and  its  silvery  laugh  it  seems  to 
lead  a  merry  life.  But  too  soon  it  plunges  into 
precipitous  canyons  and  enters  upon  its  fierce 
struggle  with  the  encompassing  rock.  Now  it 
boils  and  foams,  leaps  and  strikes,  thunders  and 
shatters.  For  hundreds  of  miles  it  wears  and 
worries  and  undermines  the  rock  to  its  destruc- 
tion. During  the  long  centuries  it  has  cut 
down  into  the  crust  of  the  earth  five  thousand 
feet.  But  ever  the  stout  walls  keep  casting  it 
back,  keep  churning  it  into  bubbles,  beating  it 
63 


Rise  of  the 
Colorado. 


In  the 
canyon. 


64 


THE  DESERT 


On  the 
desert. 


Thelower 
river. 


into  froth.  At  last,  its  canyon  course  run,  ex- 
hausted and  helpless,  it  is  pushed  through  the 
escarpments,  thrust  out  upon  the  desert,  to  find 
its  way  to  the  sea  as  best  it  can.  Its  spirit  is 
broken,  its  vivacity  is  extinguished,  its  color  is 
deepened  to  a  dark  red — the  trail  of  blood  that 
leads  up  to  the  death.  Wearily  now  it  drifts 
across  the  desert  without  a  ripple,  without  a 
moan.  Like  a  wounded  snake  it  drags  its  length 
far  down  the  long  wastes  of  sand  to  where  the 
blue  waves  are  flashing  on  the  Calif ornian  Gulf. 
And  there  it  meets — obliteration. 

After  the  clash  and  roar  of  the  conflict  in  the 
canyons  how  impressive  seems  the  stillness  of 
the  desert,  how  appalling  the  unbroken  silence 
of  the  lower  river  !  Day  after  day  it  moves  sea- 
ward, but  without  a  sound.  You  start  at  its 
banks  to  find  no  waves,  no  wash  upon  gravel 
beaches,  no  rush  of  water  over  shoals.  Instead 
of  the  soothing  murmur  of  breaking  falls  there 
is  at  times  the  boil  of  currents  from  below — 
waters  flung  up  sullenly  and  soon  flattened 
into  drifting  nothingness  by  their  own  weight. 

And  how  heavily  the  stream  moves  !  Its  load 
of  silt  is  gradually  settling  to  the  bottom,  yet 
still  the  water  seems  to  drag  upon  the  shores. 
Every  reef  of  sand,  every  island  of  mud,  every 


THE  SILENT  RIVER 


65 


overhanging  willow  or  Cottonwood  or  handful 
of  arrow-weed  holds  out  a  restraining  hand. 
But  slowly,  patiently,  winding  about  obstruc- 
tions, cutting  out  new  channels,  creeping  where 
it  may  not  run,  the  bubbleless  water  works  its 
way  to  the  sea.  The  night-winds  steal  along  its 
shores  and  pass  in  and  out  among  its  sedges, 
but  there  are  no  whispering  voices ;  and  the  stars 
emerge  and  shine  upon  the  flat  floor  of  water, 
but  there  is  no  lustre.  The  drear  desolation  of 
it  !  The  blare  of  morning  sunlight  does  not 
lift  the  pall,  nor  the  waving  illusions  of  the 
mirage  break  the  stillness.  The  Silent  River 
moves  on  carrying  desolation  with  it ;  and  at 
every  step  the  waters  grow  darker,  darker  with 
the  stain  of  red — red  the  hue  of  decay. 

It  was  not  through  paucity  of  imagination 
that  the  old  Spaniards  gave  the  name — Col- 
orado.* During  the  first  fifty  years  after  its 
discovery  the  river  was  christened  many  times, 
but  the  name  that  finally  clung  to  it  was  the 
one  that  gave  accurate  and  truthful  description. 

*  Colorado  is  said  to  be  the  Spanish  translation  of  the 
Piman  name  buqui  aquimuii,  according  to  the  late  Dr. 
Elliot  Cones  ;  but  the  Spanish  word  was  so  obviously 
used  to  denote  the  red  color  of  the  stream,  that  any  trans- 
lation from  the  Indian  would  seem  superfluous. 


Shtggisk 
moveifient. 


Tlie  river's 
name. 


66 


THE  DESERT 


JUred 
color. 


Compared 
vnth  the 
Nile. 


Yon  may  see  on  the  face  of  the  globe  nnmer- 
ous  muddy  Missonris,  blue  Rhones,  and  yellow 
Tibers  ;  but  there  is  only  one  red  river  and  that 
the  Colorado.  It  is  not  exactly  an  earthy  red, 
not  the  color  of  shale  and  clay  mixed  ;  but  the 
red  of  peroxide  of  iron  and  copper,  the  sang-du- 
hceuf  red  of  oriental  ceramics,  the  deep  insistent 
red  of  things  time-worn  beyond  memory.  And 
there  is  more  than  a  veneer  about  the  color.  It 
has  a  depth  that  seems  luminous  and  yet  is  sadly 
deceptive.  You  do  not  see  below  the  surface 
no  matter  how  long  you  gaze  into  it.  As  well 
try  to  see  through  a  stratum  of  porphyry  as 
through  that  water  to  the  bottom  of  the  river. 

To  call  it  a  river  of  blood  would  be  exaggera- 
tion, and  yet  the  truth  lies  in  the  exaggeration. 
As  one  walks  along  its  crumbling  banks  there  is 
the  thought  of  that  other  river  that  changed  its 
hue  under  the  outstretched  rod  of  the  prophet. 
How  weird  indeed  must  have  been  the  ensan- 
guined flow  of  the  Nile,  with  its  little  waves 
breaking  in  crests  of  pink  foam  !  How  strange 
the  shores  where  the  receding  waters  left  upon 
sand  and  rock  a  bordering  line  of  scarlet  froth  I 
But  the  Colorado  is  not  quite  like  that — not 
so  ghastly,  not  so  unearthly.  It  may  suggest 
at  times  the  heavy  welling  flow  of  thickening 


UM/v 


THE   SILENT  RtVER 


67 


blood  which  the  sands  at  every  step  are  trying 
to  drink  up ;  but  this  is  suggestion  only,  not 
realization.  It  seems  to  hint  at  blood,  and 
under  starlight  to  resemble  it ;  but  the  resem- 
blance is  more  apparent  than  real.  The  Colo- 
rado is  a  red  river  but  not  a  scarlet  one. 

It  may  be  thought  odd  that  the  river  should 
change  so  radically  from  the  clear  blue-green 
of  its  fountain-head  to  the  opaque  red  of  its 
desert  stream,  but  rivers  when  they  go  wander- 
ing down  to  the  sea  usually  leave  their  moun- 
tain purity  behind  them.  The  Colorado  rush- 
ing through  a  thousand  miles  of  canyons,  cuts 
and  carries  seaward  with  it  red  sands  of  shale, 
granite,  and  porphyry,  red  rustings  of  iron,  red 
grits  of  carnelian,  agate  and  garnet.  All  the 
tributaries  come  bearing  their  tokens  of  red 
copper,  and  with  the  rains  the  whole  red  sur- 
face of  the  watershed  apparently  washes  into 
the  smaller  creeks  and  thus  into  the  valleys. 
When  the  river  reaches  the  desert  carrying  its 
burden  of  silt,  it  no  longer  knows  the  bowlder- 
bed,  the  rocky  shores,  the  breaking  waterfalls 
that  clarify  a  stream.  And  there  are  no  large 
pools  where  the  water  can  rest  while  the  silt 
settles  to  the  bottom.  Besides,  the  desert 
itself  at  times  pours  into  the  river  an  even 


68 


THE  DESERT 


deeper  red  than  the  canyons.  And  it  does  this 
not  through  arroyos  alone,  but  also  by  a  wide 
surface  drainage. 

Often  the  slope  of  the  desert  to  the  river  is 
gradual  for  many  miles — sometimes  like  the 
top  of  a  huge  table  slightly  tilted  from  the 
horizontal.  When  the  edge  of  the  table  is 
reached  the  mesa  begins  to  break  into  terraces 
(often  cut  through  by  small  gullies),  and  the 
final  descent  is  not  unlike  the  steps  of  a  Koman 
circus  leading  down  into  the  arena.  During 
cloud-bursts  the  waters  pour  down  these  steps 
with  great  fury  and  the  river  simply  acts  as 
a  catch-basin  for  all  the  running  color  of  the 
desert. 

The  *'  bottom  "  lands,  forming  the  immediate 
banks  of  the  river,  are  the  silt  deposits  of 
former  years.  Often  they  are  several  miles  in 
width  and  are  usually  covered  with  arrow-weed, 
willows,  alders,  and  cottonwoods.  The  growth 
is  dense  if  not  tall  and  often  forms  an  almost 
impenetrable  jungle  through  which  are  scat- 
tered little  openings  where  grass  and  flowers 
grow  and  Indians  build  reed  wickiups  and  raise 
melons  and  corn  in  season.  The  desert  terraces 
on  either  side  (sometimes  there  is  a  row  of  sand- 
dunes)  comedown  to  meet  these  ** bottom"  lands. 


THE  SILENT  RIVER 


69 


and  the  line  where  the  one  leaves  off  and  the 
other  begins  is  drawn  as  with  the  sharp  edge  of 
a  knife.  Seen  from  the  distant  mountain  tops 
the  river  moves  between  two  long  ribbons  of 
green,  and  the  borders  are  the  gray  and  gold 
mesas  of  the  desert. 

Afloat  and  drifting  down  between  these  lines 
of  green  your  attention  is  perhaps  not  at  first 
attracted  by  the  water.  You  are  interested  in 
the  thickets  of  alders  and  the  occasional  bursts 
of  white  and  yellow  flowers  from  among  the 
bushes.  They  are  very  commonplace  bushes, 
very  ordinary  flowers  ;  but  how  lovely  they  look 
as  they  seem  to  drift  by  the  boat !  How  silent 
again  are  these  clumps  of  alder  and  willow ! 
There  may  be  linnets  and  sparrows  among  them 
but  they  do  not  make  their  presence  obtrusive 
in  song.  A  hawk  wheels  along  over  the  arrow- 
weed  looking  for  quail,  but  his  wings  cut  the 
air  without  noise.  How  deathly  still  everything 
seems  !  The  water  wears  into  the  soft  banks, 
the  banks  keep  sloughing  into  the  stream,  but 
again  you  hear  no  splashing  fall. 

And  the  water  itself  is  just  as  soundless. 
There  is  never  a  sunken  rock  to  make  a  little 
gurgle,  never  a  strip  of  gravel  beach  where  a  I 
wave  could  charm  you  with  its  play.     The  beat  I 


The  arcen 
bands. 


ISvshes  and 
flowers. 


Soundless 
water. 


70 


THE  DESERT 


Wild  fowl. 


Herons  and 
bitterns. 


of  oars  breaks  the  air  with  a  jar,  but  breaks  no 
bubbles  on  the  water.  You  look  long  at  the 
stream  and  fall  to  wondering  if  there  can  be 
any  life  in  it.  What  besides  a  polywog  or  a 
bullhead  could  live  there  ?  Obviously,  and  in 
fact — nothing.  Perhaps  there  are  otter  and 
beaver  living  along  the  pockets  in  the  banks  ? 
Yes  ;  there  were  otter  and  beaver  here  at  one 
time,  but  they  are  very  scarce  to-day.  But 
there  are  wild  fowl  ?  Yes  ;  in  the  spring  and 
fall  the  geese  and  ducks  follow  the  river  in 
their  flights,  but  they  do  not  like  the  red  water. 
What  proof  ?  Because  they  do  not  stop  long  in 
any  one  place.  They  swing  into  a  bayou  or 
slough  late  at  night  and  go  out  at  early  dawn. 
They  do  not  love  the  stream,  but  wild  fowl  on 
their  migratory  flights  must  have  water,  and 
this  river  is  the  only  one  between  the  Rockies 
and  the  Pacific  that  runs  north  and  south. 

The  blue  herons  and  the  bitterns  do  not  mind 
the  red  mud  or  the  red  water,  in  fact  they 
rather  like  it;  but  they  were  always  solitary 
people  of  the  sedge.  They  prowl  about  the 
marshes  alone  and  the  swish  of  oars  drives  them 
into  the  air  with  a  guttural  "Quowk.^'  And 
there  are  snipe  here,  bands  of  them,  flashing 
their  wings  in  the  sun  as  they  wheel  o^er  the 


THE  SILENT  RIVER 


71 


red  waters  or  trip  along  the  muddy  banks 
singly  or  in  pairs.  They  are  quite  at  home  on 
the  bars  and  bayou  flats,  but  it  seems  not  a  very 
happy  home  for  them — that  is  judging  by  the 
absence  of  snipe  talk.  The  little  teeter  flies 
ahead  of  you  from  point  to  point,  but  makes  no 
twitter,  the  yellow-leg  seldom  sounds  his  mellow 
three-note  call,  and  the  kill-deer,  even  though 
you  shoot  at  him,  will  not  cry  "  Kill-deer ! " 
'' Kill-deer !'' 

It  may  be  the  season  when  birds  are  mute,  or 
it  may  merely  happen  so  for  to-day,  or  it  may 
be  that  the  silence  of  the  river  and  the  desert  is 
an  oppressive  influence  ;  but  certainly  you  have 
never  seen  bird-life  so  hopelessly  sad.  Even 
the  kingfisher,  swinging  down  in  a  blue  line 
from  a  dead  limb  and  skimming  the  water, 
makes  none  of  that  rattling  clatter  that  you 
knew  so  well  when  you  were  a  child  by  a  New 
England  mill-stream.  And  what  does  a  king- 
fisher on  such  a  river  as  this  ?  If  it  were  filled 
with  fish  he  could  not  see  them  through  that 
thick  water. 

The  voiceless  river  !  From  the  canyon  to  the 
sea  it  flows  through  deserts,  and  ever  the  seal  of 
silence  is  upon  it.  Even  the  scant  life  of  its 
borders  is  dumb — birds  with  no  note,  animals 


72 


THE  DESERT 


with  no  cry,  human  beings  with  no  voice.  And 
so  forsaken  !  The  largest  river  west  of  the 
mountains  and  yet  the  least  known.  There  are 
miles  upon  miles  of  mesas  stretching  upward 
from  the  stream  that  no  feet  have  ever  trodden, 
and  that  possess  not  a  vestige  of  life  of  any 
kind.  And  along  its  banks  the  same  tale  is 
told.  You  float  for  days  and  meet  with  no 
traces  of  humanity.  "When  they  do  appear  it  is 
but  to  emphasize  the  solitude.  An  Indian 
wickiup  on  the  bank,  an  Indian  town ;  yes,  a 
white  man^s  town,  what  impression  do  they 
make  upon  the  desert  and  its  river  ?  You  drift 
by  Yuma  and  wonder  what  it  is  doing  there. 
Had  it  been  built  in  the  middle  of  the  Pacific 
on  a  barren  rock  it  could  not  be  more  isolated, 
more  hopelessly  ''  at  sea." 

After  the  river  crosses  the  border-line  of 
Mexico  it  grows  broader  and  flatter  than  ever. 
And  still  the  color  seems  to  deepen.  For  all  its 
suggestion  of  blood  it  is  not  an  unlovely  color. 
On  the  contrary,  that  deep  red  contrasted  with 
the  green  of  the  banks  and  the  blue  of  the  sky, 
makes  a  very  beautiful  color  harmony.  They 
are  hues  of  depth  and  substance — hues  that 
comport  excellently  well  with  the  character  of 
the  river  itself.     And  never  a  river  had  more 


THE   SILENT  RIVER 


character  than  the  Colorado.  You  may  not 
fancy  the  solitude  of  the  stream  nor  its  sugges- 
tive coloring,  but  you  cannot  deny  its  majesty 
and  its  nobility.  It  has  not  now  the  babble  of 
the  brook  nor  the  swift  rush  of  the  canyon 
water ;  rather  the  quiet  dignity  that  is  above 
conflict,  beyond  gayety.  It  has  grown  old,  it 
is  nearing  its  end  ;  but  nothing  could  be  calmer, 
simpler,  more  sublime,  than  the  drift  of  it  down 
into  the  delta  basin. 

The  mountains  are  receding  on  every  side, 
the  desert  is  flattening  to  meet  the  sea,  and  the 
ocean  tides  are  rising  to  meet  the  river.  Half 
human  in  its  dissolution,  the  river  begins  to 
break  joint  by  joint.  The  change  has  been 
gradually  taking  place  for  miles  and  now  mani- 
fests itself  positively.  The  bottom  lands  widen, 
many  channels  or  side-sloughs  open  upon  the 
stream,  and  the  water  is  distributed  into  the 
mouths  of  the  delta.  There  is  a  break  in  the 
volume  and  mass — a  disintegration  of  forces. 
And  by  divers  ways,  devious  and  slow,  the 
crippled  streams  well  out  to  the  Gulf  and  never 
come  together  again. 

It  is  not  so  when  the  river  is  at  its  height  with 
spring  freshets.  Then  the  stream  is  swollen 
beyond  its  banks.     All  the  bottom  lands  for 


74 


THE  DESERT 


miles  across,  up  to  the  very  terraces  of  the 
mesas,  are  covered ;  and  the  red  flood  moves 
like  an  ocean  current,  vast  in  width,  ponderous 
in  weight,  irresistible  in  strength.  All  things 
that  can  be  uprooted  or  wrenched  away,  move 
with  it.  Nothing  can  check  or  stop  it  now. 
It  is  the  Grand  Canyon  river  once  more,  free, 
mighty,  dangerous  even  in  its  death-throes. 

And  now  at  the  full  and  the  change  of  the 
moon,  when  the  Gulf  waters  come  in  like  a 
tidal  wave,  and  the  waters  of  the  north  meet 
the  waters  of  the  south,  there  is  a  mighty  con- 
flict of  opposing  forces.  The  famous  ''  bore  " 
of  the  river-mouth  is  the  result.  When  the 
forces  first  meet  there  is  a  slow  push-up  of  the 
water  which  rises  in  the  shape  of  a  ridge  or 
wedge.  The  sea-water  gradually  proves  itself 
the  greater  and  the  stronger  body,  and  the  ridge 
breaks  into  a  crest  and  pitches  forward  with  a 
roar.  The  undercut  of  the  river  sweeps  away 
the  footing  of  the  tide,  so  to  speak,  and  flings 
the  top  of  the  wave  violently  forward.  The  red 
river  rushes  under,  the  blue  tide  rushes  over. 
There  is  the  flash  and  dash  of  parti-colored 
foam  on  the  crests,  the  flinging  of  jets  of  spray 
high  in  air,  the  long  roll  of  waves  breaking  not 
upon  a  beach,  but  upon  the  back  of  the  river. 


THE  SILENT  RIVER 


75 


and  the  shaking  of  the  ground  as  though  an 
earthquake  were  passing.  After  it  is  all  done 
with  and  gone,  with  no  trace  of  wave  or  foam 
remaining,  miles  away  down  the  Gulf  the  red 
river  slowly  rises  in  little  streams  through  the 
blue  to  the  surface.  There  it  spreads  fan-like 
over  the  top  of  the  sea,  and  finally  mingles  with 
and  is  lost  in  the  greater  body. 

The  river  is  no  more.  It  has  gone  down  to 
its  blue  tomb  in  the  Gulf — the  fairest  tomb  that 
ever  river  knew.  Something  of  serenity  in  the 
Gulf  waters,  something  of  the  monumental  in 
the  bordering  mountains,  something  of  the  un- 
known and  the  undiscovered  over  all,  make  it  a 
fit  resting-place  for  the  majestic  Colorado.  The 
lonely  stream  that  so  shunned  contact  with 
man,  that  dug  its  bed  thousands  of  feet  in  the 
depths  of  pathless  canyons,  and  trailed  its  length 
across  trackless  deserts,  sought  out  instinctively 
a  point  of  disappearance  far  from  the  madding 
crowd.  The  blue  waters  of  the  Gulf,  the 
beaches  of  shell,  the  red,  red  mountains  standing 
with  their  feet  in  the  sea,  are  still  far  removed 
from  civilization's  touch.  There  are  no  towns 
or  roads  or  people  by  those  shores,  there  are  no 
ships  upon  those  seas,  there  are  no  dust  and 
smoke  of  factories  in  those  skies.     The  Indians 


76 


THE  DESERT 


are  there  as  undisturbed  as  in  the  days  of 
Coronado,  and  the  white  man  is  coming  but 
has  not  yet  arrived.  The  sun  still  shines  on 
unknown  bays  and  unexplored  peaks.  There- 
fore is  there  silence — something  of  the  hush  of 
the  deserts  and  the  river  that  flows  between. 


CHAPTER  V 
LIGHT,  AIR,  AND  COLOR 


These  deserts,  cut  through  from  north  to 
south  by  a  silent  river  and  from  east  to  west  by 
two  noisy  railways,  seem  remarkable  for  only  a 
few  commonplace  things,  according  to  the  con- 
sensus of  public  opinion.  All  that  one  hears 
or  reads  about  them  is  that  they  are  very  hot, 
that  the  sunlight  is  very  glaring,  and  that  there 
is  a  sand-storm,  a  thirst,  and  death  waiting 
for  every  traveller  who  ventures  over  the  first 
divide. 

There  is  truth  enough,  to  be  sure,  in  the  heat 
and  glare  part  of  it,  and  an  exceptional  truth  in 
the  other  part  of  it.  It  is  intensely  hot  on  the 
desert  at  times,  but  the  sun  is  not  responsible 
for  it  precisely  in  the  manner  alleged.  The 
heat  that  one  feels  is  not  direct  sunlight  so 
much  as  radiation  from  the  receptive  sands  ; 
and  the  glare  is  due  not  to  preternatural  bright- 
ness in  the  sunbeam,  but  to  there  being  no  re- 
liefs for  the  eye  in  shadows,  in  dark  colors,  in 
77 


Popular 
ideas  of  the 
desert. 


Sunlight  on 
desert. 


78 


THE  DESERT 


heavy  foliage.  The  vegetation  of  the  desert  is 
so  slight  that  practically  the  whole  surface  of 
the  sand  acts  as  a  reflector  ;  and  it  is  this,  rather 
than  the  sun's  intensity,  that  causes  the  great 
body  of  light.  The  white  roads  in  Southern 
France,  for  the  surface  they  cover,  are  more 
glaring  than  any  desert  sands  ;  and  the  sunlight 
upon  snow  in  Minnesota  or  New  England  is 
more  dazzling.  In  certain  spots  where  there 
are  salt  or  soda  beds  the  combination  of  heat 
and  light  is  bewildering  enough  for  anyone; 
but  such  places  are  rare.  White  is  something 
seldom  seen  on  desert  lands,  and  black  is  an 
unknown  quantity  in  my  observations.  Even 
lava,  which  is  popularly  supposed  to  be  as  black 
as  coal,  has  a  reddish  hue  about  it.  Everything 
has  some  color— even  the  air.  Indeed,  we  shall 
not  comprehend  the  desert  light  without  a  mo- 
mentary study  of  this  desert  air. 

The  circumambient  medium  which  we  call 
the  atmosphere  is  to  the  earth  only  as  so  much 
ground-glass  globe  to  a  lamp — something  that 
breaks,  checks,  and  diffuses  the  light.  We  have 
never  known,  never  shall  know,  direct  sunlight 
— that  is,  sunlight  in  its  purity  undisturbed  by 
atmospheric  conditions.  It  is  a  blue  shaft  fall- 
ing perfectly  straight,  not  a  diffused  white  or 


LIGHT,    AIR,    AND   COLOR 


79 


yellow  light ;  and  probably  the  life  of  the  earth 
would  not  endure  for  an  hour  if  submitted  to 
its  unchecked  intensity.  The  white  or  yellow 
light,  known  to  us  as  sunlight,  is  produced  by 
the  ground-glass  globe  of  air,  and  it  follows 
readily  enough  that  its  intensity  is  absolutely 
dependent  upon  the  density  of  the  atmosphere 
— the  thickness  of  the  globe.  The  cause  for 
the  thickening  of  the  aerial  envelope  lies  in  the 
particles  of  dust,  soot,  smoke,  salt,  and  vapor 
which  are  found  floating  in  larger  or  smaller 
proportions  in  all  atmospheres. 

In  rainy  countries  like  England  and  Holland 
the  vapor  particles  alone  are  sufficiently  numer- 
ous to  cause  at  times  great  obscurity  of  light, 
as  in  the  case  of  fog  ;  and  the  air  is  only  com- 
paratively clear  even  when  the  skies  are  all  blue. 
The  light  is  almost  always  whitish,  and  the 
horizons  often  milky  white.  The  air  is  thick, 
for  you  cannot  see  a  mountain  fifteen  miles 
away  in  any  sharpness  of  detail.  There  is  a 
mistiness  about  the  rock  masses  and  a  vague- 
ness about  the  outline.  An  opera-glass  does 
not  help  your  vision.  The  obscurity  is  not  in 
the  eyes  but  in  the  atmospheric  veil  through 
which  you  are  striving  to  see.  On  the  contrary, 
in  the  high  plateau  country  of  Wyoming,  where 


80 


THE  DESERT 


the  quantities  of  dust  and  vapor  in  the  air  are 
comparatively  small,  the  distances  that  one  can 
see  are  enormous.  A  mountain  seventy  miles 
away  often  appears  sharp-cut  against  the  sky, 
and  at  sunset  the  lights  and  shadows  upon  its 
sides  look  only  ten  miles  distant. 

But  desert  air  is  not  quite  like  the  plateau 
air  of  Wyoming,  though  one  can  see  through  it 
for  many  leagues.  It  is  not  thickened  by  moist- 
ure particles,  for  its  humidity  is  almost  noth- 
ing ;  but  the  dust  particles,  carried  upward  by 
radiation  and  the  winds,  answer  a  similar  pur- 
pose. They  parry  the  sunshaf  t,  break  and  color 
the  light,  increase  the  density  of  the  envelope. 
Dust  is  always  present  in  the  desert  air  in  some 
degree,  and  when  it  is  at  its  maximum  with  the 
heat  and  winds  of  July,  we  see  the  air  as  a  blue, 
yellow,  or  pink  haze.  This  haze  is  not  seen  so 
well  at  noonday  as  at  evening  when  the  sun's 
rays  are  streaming  through  canyons,  or  at  dawn 
when  it  lies  in  the  mountain  shadows  and  re- 
flects the  blue  sky.  i  Nor  does  it  muffle  or  ob- 
scure so  much  as  the  moisture-laden  mists  of 
Holland,  but  it  thickens  the  air  perceptibly  and 
decreases  in  measure  the  intensity  of  the  light.  \ 

Yet  despite  the  fact  that  desert  air  is  dust- 
laden  and  must  be  thickened  somewhat,  there 


LIGHT,    AIR,    AND  COLOR 


81 


is  something  almost  inexplicable  about  it.  It 
seems  so  thin,  so  rarefied ;  and  it  is  so  scent- 
less— I  had  almost  said  breathless — that  it  is 
like  no  air  at  all.  You  breathe  it  without  feel- 
ing it,  you  look  through  it  without  being  con- 
scious of  its  presence.  Yet  here  comes  in  the 
contradiction.  Desert  air  is  very  easily  recog- 
nized by  the  eyes  alone.  The  traveller  in  Cal- 
ifornia when  he  wakes  in  the  morning  and 
glances  out  of  the  car-window  at  the  air  in  the 
mountain  canyons,  knows  instantly  on  which 
Bide  of  the  Tehachepi  Range  the  train  is  mov- 
ing. He  knows  he  is  crossing  the  Mojave. 
The  lilac-blue  veiling  that  hangs  about  those 
mountains  is  as  recognizable  as  the  sea  air  of 
the  Massachusetts  shore.  And,  strange  enough, 
the  sea  breezes  that  blow  across  the  deserts  all 
down  the  Pacific  coast  have  no  appreciable  ef- 
fect upon  this  air.  The  peninsula  of  Lower 
California  is  practically  surrounded  by  water, 
but  through  its  entire  length  and  down  the 
shores  of  Sonora  to  Mazatlan,  there  is  nothing 
but  that  clear,  dry  air. 

I  use  the  word  "  clear  ^'  because  one  can  see 
so  far  through  this  atmosphere,  and  yet  it  is 
not  clear  or  we  should  not  see  it  so  plainly. 
There  is  the  contradiction  again.   Is  it  perhaps 


82 


THE  DESERT 


Colored  air. 


Different 
hues. 


Producing 
color. 


the  coloring  of  it  that  makes  it  so  apparent  ? 
Probably.  Even  the  clearest  atmosphere  has 
some  coloring  about  it.  Usually  it  is  an  inde- 
finable blue.  Air-blue  means  the  most  delicate 
of  all  colors — something  not  of  surface  depth 
but  of  transparency,  builded  up  by  superim- 
posed strata  of  air  many  miles  perhaps  in 
thickness.  This  air-blue  is  seen  at  its  best  in 
the  gorges  of  the  Alps,  and  in  the  mountain 
distances  of  Scotland  ;  but  it  is  not  so  apparent 
on  the  desert.  The  coloring  of  the  atmosphere 
on  the  Colorado  and  the  Mojave  is  oftener 
pink,  yellow,  lilac,  rose-color,  sometimes  fire- 
red.  And  to  understand  that  we  must  take  up 
the  ground-glass  globe  again. 

It  has  been  said  that  our  atmosphere  breaks, 
checks,  and  diffuses  the  falling  sunlight  like 
the  globe  of  a  lamp.  It  does  something  more. 
It  acts  as  a  prism  and  breaks  the  beam  of  sun- 
light into  the  colors  of  the  spectrum.  Some  of 
these  colors  it  deals  with  more  harshly  than 
others  because  of  their  shortness  and  their 
weakness.  The  blue  rays,  for  instance,  are  the 
greatest  in  number  ;  but  they  are  the  shortest 
in  length,  the  weakest  in  travelling  power  of 
any  of  them.  Because  of  their  weakness,  and 
because  of  their  aflBnity  (as  regards  size)  with 


LIGHT,    AIR,    AND  COLOR 


83 


the  small  dust  particles  of  the  higher  air  re- 
gion, great  quantities  of  these  rays  are  caught, 
refracted,  and  practically  held  in  check  in  the 
upper  strata  of  the  atmosphere.  We  see  them 
massed  together  overhead  and  call  them  the 
"blue  sky."  After  many  millions  of  these 
blue  rays  have  been  eliminated  from  the  sun- 
light the  remaining  rays  come  down  to  earth 
as  a  white  or  yellow  or  at  times  reddish  light, 
dependent  upon  the  density  of  the  lower  atmos- 
phere. 

Now  it  seems  that  an  atmosphere  laden  with 
moisture  particles  obstructs  the  passage  earth- 
ward of  the  blue  rays,  less  perhaps  than  an 
atmosphere  laden  with  dust.  In  consequence, 
when  they  are  thus  allowed  to  come  down  into 
the  lower  atmosphere  in  company  with  the 
other  rays,  their  vast  number  serves  to  dom- 
inate the  others,  and  to  produce  a  cool  tone  of 
color  over  all.  So  it  is  that  in  moist  countries 
like  Scotland  you  will  find  the  sky  cold-blue 
and  the  air  tinged  gray,  pale-blue,  or  at  twi- 
light in  the  mountain  valleys,  a  chilly  purple. 
A  dust-laden  atmosphere  seems  to  act  just  the 
reverse  of  this.  It  obstructs  all  the  rays  in 
proportion  to  its  density,  but  it  stops  the  blue 
rays  first,  holds  them  in  the  upper  air,  while 


Refracted 
rays. 


Cold  colors^ 

how 

produced. 


84 


THE  DESERT 


Warm 
color*. 


Sky  colors. 


the  stronger  rays  of  red  and  yellow  are  only 
checked  in  the  lower  and  thicker  air-strata 
near  the  earth.  The  result  of  this  is  to  pro- 
duce a  warm  tone  of  color  over  all.  So  it  is 
that  in  dry  countries  like  Spain  and  Morocco 
or  on  the  deserts  of  Africa  and  America,  you 
will  find  the  sky  rose-hned  or  yellow,  and  the 
air  lilac,  pink,  red,  or  yellow. 

I  mean  now  that  the  air  itself  is  colored.  Of 
course  countless  quantities  of  light-beams  and 
dispersed  rays  break  through  the  aerial  envelope 
and  reach  the  earth,  else  we  should  not  see 
color  in  the  trees  or  grasses  or  flowers  about 
us ;  but  I  am  not  now  speaking  of  the  color  of 
objects  on  the  earth,  but  of  the  color  of  the  air. 
A  thing  too  intangible  for  color  you  think  ? 
But  what  of  the  sky  overhead  ?  It  is  only  tint- 
ed atmosphere.  And  what  of  the  bright-hued 
horizon  skies  at  sunrise  and  sunset,  the  rosy- 
yellow  skies  of  Indian  summer  !  They  are  only 
tinted  atmospheres  again.  Banked  up  in  great 
masses,  and  seen  at  long  distances,  the  air-color 
becomes  palpably  apparent.  Why  then  should 
it  not  be  present  in  shorter  distances,  in  moun- 
tain canyons,  across  mesas  and  lomas,  and  over 
the  stretches  of  the  desert  plains  ? 

The  truth  is  all  air  is  colored,  and  that  of 


LIGHT,    AIR,    AND  COLOR 


85 


the  desert  is  deeper  dyed  and  warmer  hued  than 
any  other  for  the  reasons  just  given.  It  takes 
on  many  tints  at  different  times,  dependent 
upon  the  thickening  of  the  envelope  by  heat 
and  dust-diffusing  winds.  I  do  not  know  if  it 
is  possible  for  fine  dust  to  radiate  with  heat 
alone ;  but  certain  it  is  that,  without  the  aid  of 
the  wind,  there  is  more  dust  in  the  air  on  hot 
days  than  at  any  other  time.  When  the  ther- 
mometer rises  above  100°  F.,  the  atmosphere  is 
heavy  with  it,  and  the  lower  strata  are  dancing 
and  trembling  with  phantoms  of  the  mirage  at 
every  point  of  the  compass.  It  would  seem  as 
though  the  rising  heat  took  up  with  it  countless 
small  dust-particles  and  that  these  were  respon- 
sible for  the  rosy  or  golden  quality  of  the  air- 
coloring. 

There  is  a  more  positive  tinting  of  the  air 
produced  sometimes  by  high  winds.  The  lighter 
particles  of  sand  are  always  being  drifted  here 
and  there  through  the  aerial  regions,  and  even 
on  still  days  the  whirlwinds  are  eddying  and 
circling,  lifting  long  columns  of  dust  skyward 
and  then  allowing  the  dust  to  settle  back  to 
earth  through  the  atmosphere.  The  stronger 
the  wind,  and  the  more  of  dust  and  sand,  the 
brighter  the  coloring.     The  climax  is  reached 


Color  pro- 
duced  by 
dust. 


Effect  of 
heat. 


Efeet  of 
vnnds. 


THE  DESERT 


«toroM. 


Reflections 
upon  sky. 


in  the  dramatic  sand-storm — a  veritable  sand- 
fog  which  often  turns  half  the  heavens  into  a 
luminous  red,  and  makes  the  sun  look  like  a 
round  ball  of  fire. 

The  dust-particle  in  itself  is  sufficient  to  ac- 
count for  the  warmth  of  coloring  in  the  desert 
air — sufficient  in  itself  to  produce  the  pink,  yel- 
low, and  lilac  hazes.  And  yet  I  am  tempted  to 
suggest  some  other  causes.  It  is  not  easy  to 
prove  that  a  reflection  may  be  thrown  upward 
upon  the  air  by  the  yellow  face  of  the  desert 
beneath  it — a  reflection  similar  to  that  produced 
by  a  fire  upon  a  night  sky — yet  I  believe  there 
is  something  of  the  desert's  air-coloring  derived 
from  that  source.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  prove  that 
a  reflection  is  cast  by  blue,  pink,  and  yellow 
skies,  upon  the  lower  air-strata,  yet  certain 
effects  shown  in  the  mirage  (the  water  illu- 
sion, for  instance,  which  seems  only  the  reflec- 
tion of  the  sky  from  heated  air)  seem  to  suggest 
it.  And  if  we  put  together  other  casual  obser- 
vations they  will  make  argument  toward  the 
same  goal.  For  instance,  the  common  blue 
haze  that  we  may  see  any  day  in  the  moun- 
tains, is  always  deepest  in  the  early  morning 
when  the  blue  sky  over  it  is  deepest.  At  noon 
when  the  sky  turns  gray-blue  the  haze  turns 


LIGHT,    AIR,    AND   COLOR 


87 


gray-blue  also.  The  yellow  haze  of  the  desert 
is  seen  at  its  best  when  there  is  a  yellow  sunset, 
and  the  pink  haze  when  there  is  a  red  sunset, 
indicating  that  at  least  the  sky  has  some  part 
in  coloring  by  reflection  the  lower  layers  of 
desert  air. 

Whatever  the  cause,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
about  the  effect.  ( The  desert  air  is  practically 
i^ colored  air.  Several  times  from  high  mountains 
I  have  seen  it  lying  below  me  like  an  enormous 
tinted  cloud  or  veil.  A  similar  veiling  of  pink, 
lilac,  or  pale  yellow  is  to  be  seen  in  the  gorges 
of  the  Grand  Canyon ;  it  stretches  across  the 
Providence  Mountains  at  noonday  and  is  to  be 
seen  about  the  peaks  and  packed  in  the  valleys 
at  sunset;  it  is  dense  down  in  the  Coahuila 
Basin  ;  it  is  denser  from  range  to  range  across 
the  hollow  of  Death  Valley  ;  and  it  tinges  the 
whole  face  of  the  Painted  Desert  in  Arizona. 
In  its  milder  manifestations  it  is  always  present, 
and  during  the  summer  months  its  appearance 
is  often  startling.  By  that  I  do  not  mean  that 
one  looks  through  it  as  through  a  highly  colored 
glass.  The  impression  should  not  be  gained 
that  this  air  is  so  rose-colored  or  saffron-hued 
that  one  has  to  rub  his  eyes  and  wonder  if  he  is 
awake.    The  average  unobservant  traveller  looks 


Blue, 

yellow,  and 
pink  hazes. 


The  dust- 
veil. 


Stimmer 
coloring. 


88 


THE  DESERT 


Local  hues. 


Oreentqf 

desert 

plants. 


throngli  it  and  thinks  it  not  different  from 
any  other  air.  But  it  is  different.  In  itself, 
and  in  its  effect  upon  the  landscape,  it  is  per- 
haps responsible  for  the  greater  part  of  what 
everyone  calls  *^the  wonderful  color"  of  the 
desert. 

And  this  not  to  the  obliteration  of  local  hue 
in  sands,  rocks,  and  plants.  Quite  independent 
of  atmospheres,  the  porphyry  mountains  are 
dull  red,  the  grease-wood  is  dull  green,  the  vast 
stretches  of  sand  are  dull  yellow.  And  these 
large  bodies  of  local  color  have  their  influence  in 
the  total  sum-up.  Slight  as  is  the  vegetation 
upon  the  desert,  it  is  surprising  how  it  seems 
to  bunch  together  and  count  as  a  color-mass. 
Almost  all  the  growths  are  "evergreen."  The 
shrubs  and  the  trees  shed  their  leaves,  to  be  sure, 
but  they  do  it  so  slowly  that  the  new  ones  are 
on  before  the  old  ones  are  off.  The  general 
appearance  is  always  green,  but  not  a  bright 
hue,  except  after  prolonged  rains.  Usually  it 
is  an  olive,  bordering  upon  yellow.  One  can 
hardly  estimate  what  a  relieving  note  this  thin 
thatch  of  color  is,  or  how  monotonous  the 
desert  might  be  without  it.  It  is  welcome,  for 
it  belongs  to  the  scene,  and  fits  in  the  color- 
scheme  of  the  landscape  as  perfectly  as  the 


LIGHT,    AIR,    AND   COLOR 


89 


dark-green  pines  in  the  mountain  scenery  of 
Norway. 

The  sands,  again,  form  vast  fields  of  local 
color,  and,  indeed,  the  beds  of  sand  and  gravel, 
the  dunes,  the  ridges,  and  the  mesas,  make  up 
the  most  widespread  local  hue  on  the  desert. 
The  sands  are  not  ''golden,'*  except  under 
peculiar  circumstances,  such  as  when  they  are 
whirled  high  in  the  air  by  the  winds,  and  then 
struck  broadside  by  the  sunlight.  Lying  quietly 
upon  the  earth  they  are  usually  a  dull  yellow. 
In  the  morning  light  they  are  often  gray,  at 
noon  frequently  a  bleached  yellow,  and  at  sun- 
set occasi onally  pink  or  saff ron-hued.  Wavering 
heat  and  mirage  give  them  temporary  coloring 
at  times  that  is  beautifully  unreal.  They  then 
appear  to  undulate  slightly  like  the  smooth 
surface  of  a  summer  sea  at  sunset ;  and  the 
colors  shift  and  travel  with  the  undulations. 
The  appearance  is  not  common  ;  perfect  calm, 
a  flat  plain,  and  intense  heat  being  apparently 
the  conditions  necessary  to  its  existence. 

The  rocks  of  the  upper  peaks  and  those  that 
make  the  upright  walls  of  mountains,  though 
small  in  body  of  color,  are  perhaps  more  varied 
in  hue  than  either  the  sands  or  the  vegetation, 
and  that,  too,  without  primary  notes  as  in  the 


90 


THE  DESERT 


Tnfiuenee  of 
the  air. 


Grand  Canyon  of  the  Yellowstone.  The  reds  are 
always  salmon-colored,  terra-cotta,  or  Indian 
red ;  the  greens  are  olive-hued,  plum-colored, 
sage-green;  the  yellows  are  as  pallid  as  the 
leaves  of  yellow  roses.  Fresh  breaks  in  the 
wall  of  rock  may  show  brighter  colors  that 
have  not  yet  been  weather-worn,  or  they  may 
reveal  the  oxidation  of  various  minerals.  Often 
long  strata  and  beds,  and  even  whole  mountain 
tops  show  blue  and  green  with  copper,  or 
orange  with  iron,  or  purple  with  slates,  or  white 
with  quartz.  But  the  tones  soon  become  sub- 
dued. A  mountain  wall  may  be  dark  red  with- 
in, but  it  is  weather-stained  and  lichen-covered 
without;  long-reaching  shafts  of  granite  that 
loom  upward  from  a  peak  may  be  yellow  at 
heart  but  they  are  silver-gray  on  the  surface. 
The  colors  have  undergone  years  of  "  toning 
down  "  until  they  blend  and  run  together  like 
the  faded  tints  of  an  Eastern  rug. 

But  granted  the  quantity  and  the  quality  of 
local  colors  in  the  desert,  and  the  fact  still  re- 
mains that  the  air  is  the  medium  that  influ- 
ences if  it  does  not  radically  change  them  all. 
The  local  hue  of  a  sierra  may  be  gray,  dark  red, 
iron-hued,  or  lead-colored  ;  but  at  a  distance, 
seen  through  dust-laden  air,   it   may  appear 


LIGHT,    AIR,    AND  COLOR 


91 


topaz-yellow,  sapphire-blue,  bright  lilac,  rose- 
red — yes,  fire-red.  During  the  heated  months  of 
summer  such  colors  are  not  exceptional.  They 
appear  almost  every  evening.  I  have  seen  at 
sunset,  looking  north  from  Sonora  some  twenty 
miles,  the  whole  tower-like  shaft  of  Baboqui- 
vari  change  from  blue  to  topaz  and  from  topaz 
to  glowing  red  in  the  course  of  half  an  hour.  I 
do  not  mean  edgings  or  rims  or  spots  of  these 
colors  upon  the  peak,  but  the  whole  upper  half 
of  the  mountain  completely  changed  by  them. 
The  red  color  gave  the  peak  the  appearance  of 
hot  iron,  and  when  it  finally  died  out  the  dark 
dull  hue  that  came  after  was  like  that  of  a 
clouded  garnet. 

The  high  ranges  along  the  western  side  of 
Arizona,  and  the  buttes  and  tall  spires  in  the 
Upper  Basin  region,  all  show  these  warm  fire- 
colors  under  heat  and  sunset  light,  and  often  in 
the  full  of  noon.  The  colored  air  in  conjunc- 
tion with  light  is  always  responsible  for  the 
hues.  Even  when  you  are  close  up  to  the  moun- 
tains you  can  see  the  effect  of  the  air  in  small 
ways.  There  are  edgings  of  bright  color  to  the 
hill-ridges  and  the  peaks  ;  and  in  the  canyons, 
where  perhaps  a  sunshaft  streams  across  the 
shadow,  you  can  see  the  gold  or  fire-color  of  the 


92 


THE  DESERT 


air  most  distinctly.  Very  beautiful  are  these 
golden  sunshafts  shot  through  the  canyons. 
And  the  red  shafts  are  often  startling.  It 
would  seem  as  though  the  canyons  were  packed 
thick  with  yellow  or  red  haze.  And  so  in  real- 
ity they  are. 

There  is  one  marked  departure  from  the  uni- 
form warm  colors  of  the  desert  that  should  be 
mentioned  just  here.  It  is  the  clear  blue  seen 
in  the  shadows  of  western-lying  mountains  at 
sunset.  This  colored  shadow  shows  only  when 
there  is  a  yellow  or  orange  hued  sunset,  and  it 
is  produced  by  the  yellow  of  the  sky  casting  its 
complementary  hue  (blue)  in  the  shadow.  At  sea 
a  ship  crossing  a  yellow  sunset  will  show  a  mar- 
vellous blue  in  her  sails  just  as  she  crosses  the 
line  of  the  sun,  and  the  desert  mountains  re- 
peat the  same  complementary  color  with  equal 
facility  and  greater  variety.  It  is  not  of  long 
duration.  It  changes  as  the  sky  changes,  but 
maintains  always  the  complementary  hue. 

The  presence  of  the  complementary  color  in 
the  shadow  is  exceptional,  however.  The  shad- 
ows cast  by  such  objects  as  the  sahuaro  and  the 
palo  verde  are  apparently  quite  colorless ;  and 
so,  too,  are  the  shadows  of  passing  clouds.  The 
colored  shadow  is  produced  by  reflection  from 


LIGHT,    AIR,    AND   COLOR 


the  sky,  mixed  with  something  of  local  color  in 
the  background,  and  also  complementary  color. 
It  is  usually  blue  or  lilac-blue,  on  snow  for  ex- 
ample, when  there  is  a  blue  sky  overhead  ;  and 
lilac  when  shown  upon  sand  or  a  blue  stone 
road.  Perhaps  it  does  not  appear  often  on  the 
Mojave-Colorado  because  the  surfaces  are  too 
rough  and  broken  with  coarse  gravel  to  make 
good  reflectors  of  the  sky.  The  fault  is  not  in 
the  light  or  in  the  sky,  for  upon  the  fine  sands 
of  the  dunes,  and  upon  beds  of  fine  gypsum 
and  salt,  you  can  see  your  own  shadow  colored 
an  absolute  indigo ;  and  often  upon  bowlders  of 
white  quartz  the  shadows  of  cholla  and  grease- 
wood  are  cast  in  almost  cobalt  hues. 

All  color — local,  reflected,  translucent,  com- 
plementary— is,  of  course,  made  possible  by 
light  and  has  no  existence  apart  from  it. 
Through  the  long  desert  day  the  sunbeams  are 
weaving  skeins  of  color  across  the  sands,  along 
the  sides  of  the  canyons,  and  about  the  tops  of 
the  mountains.  They  stain  the  ledges  of  cop- 
per with  turquoise,  they  burn  the  buttes  to  a 
terra-cotta  red,  they  paint  the  sands  with  rose 
and  violet,  and  they  key  the  air  to  the  hue  of 
the  opal.  The  reek  of  color  that  splashes  the 
western  sky  at  sunset  is  but  the  climax  of  the 


94 


THE  DESERT 


Desert 


sun's  endeavor.  If  there  are  clouds  stretched 
across  the  west  the  ending  is  usually  one  of  ex- 
ceptional brilliancy.  The  reds  are  all  scarlet, 
the  yellows  are  like  burnished  brass,  the  oranges 
like  shining  gold. 

But  the  sky  and  clouds  of  the  desert  are  of 
such  unique  splendor  that  they  call  for  a 
chapter  of  their  own. 


CHAPTER  VI 
DESERT  SKY  AND  CLOUDS 

How  silently,  even  swiftly,  the  days  glide  by 
out  in  the  desert,  in  the  waste,  in  the  wilder- 
ness I  How  *'  the  morning  and  the  evening 
make  np  the  day  "  and  the  purple  shadow  slips 
in  between  with  a  midnight  all  stars  !  And 
how  day  by  day  the  interest  grows  in  the  long 
overlooked  commonplace  things  of  nature  !  In 
a  few  weeks  we  are  studying  bushes,  bowlders, 
stones,  sand-drifts — things  we  never  thought  of 
looking  at  in  any  other  country.  And  after  a 
time  we  begin  to  make  mental  notes  on  the 
changes  of  light,  air,  clouds,  and  blue  sky.  At 
first  we  are  perhaps  bothered  about  the  inten- 
sity of  the  sky,  for  we  have  always  heard  of  the 
"  deep  blue  "  that  overhangs  the  desert ;  and 
we  expect  to  see  it  at  any  and  all  times.  But 
we  discover  that  it  shows  itself  in  its  greatest 
depth  only  in  the  morning  before  sunrise.  Then 
it  is  a  dark  blue,  bordering  upon  purple ;  and 
for  some  time  after  the  sun  comes  up  it  holds  a 
9» 


Common' 
place  thingt 
of  nature. 


96 


THE  DESERT 


l%e  blue  sky. 


Changes  in 
the  blue. 


Davmson 
the  desert. 


deep  blae  tinge.  At  noon  it  has  passed  through 
a  whole  gamut  of  tones  and  is  pale  blue,  yel- 
lowish, lilac-toned,  or  rosy  ;  in  the  late  after- 
noon it  has  changed  again  to  pink  or  gold  or 
orange  ;  and  after  twilight  and  under  the  moon, 
warm  purples  stretch  across  the  whole  reach  of 
the  firmament  from  horizon  to  horizon. 

But  the  changes  in  the  blue  during  the  day 
have  no  constancy  to  a  change.  There  is  no 
fixed  purpose  about  them.  The  caprices  of 
light,  heat,  and  dust  control  the  appearances. 
Sometimes  the  sky  at  dawn  is  as  pallid  as  a  snow- 
drop with  pearly  grays  just  emerging  from  the 
blue  ;  and  again  it  may  be  flushed  with  saffron, 
rose,  and  pink.  When  there  are  clouds  and  great 
heat  the  effect  is  often  very  brilliant.  The 
colors  are  intense  in  chrome-yellows,  golds,  car- 
mines, magentas,  malachite-greens — a  body  of 
gorgeous  hues  upheld  by  enormous  side  winga 
of  paler  tints  that  encircle  the  hoi;izon  to  the 
north  and  south,  and  send  waves  of  color  far  up 
the  sky  to  the  cool  zenith.  Such  dawns  are  sel- 
dom seen  in  moist  countries,  nor  are  they  usual 
on  the  desert,  except  during  the  hot  summer 
months. 

The  prevailing  note  of  the  sky,  the  one  of- 
tenest  seen,  is,  of  course,  blue — a  color  we  may 


DESERT  SKY  AND  CLOUDS 


97 


not  perhaps  linger  over  because  it  is  so  com- 
mon. And  yet  how  seldom  it  is  appreciated  ! 
Our  attention  is  called  to  it  in  art — in  a  haw- 
thorn jar  as  large  as  a  sugar-bowl,  made  in  a 
certain  period,  in  a  certain  Oriental  school. 
The  aesthetic  world  is  perhaps  set  agog  by 
this  ceramic  blue.  But  what  are  its  depth  and 
purity  compared  to  the  ethereal  blue  !  Yet  the 
color  is  beautiful  in  the  jar  and  infinitely  more 
beautiful  in  the  sky — that  is  beautiful  in  itself 
and  merely  as  color.  It  is  not  necessary  that 
it  should  mean  anything.  Line  and  tint  do 
not  always  require  significance  to  be  beautiful. 
There  is  no  tale  or  text  or  testimony  to  be  tort- 
ured out  of  the  blue  sky.  It  is  a  splendid  body 
of  color ;  no  more. 

You  cannot  always  see  the  wonderful  quality 
of  this  sky-blue  from  the  desert  valley,  because 
it  is  disturbed  by  reflections,  by  sand-storms,  by 
lower  air-strata.  The  report  it  makes  of  itself 
when  you  begin  to  gain  altitude  on  a  mountain's 
side  is  quite  different.  At  four  thousand  feet 
the  blue  is  certainly  more  positive,  more  intense, 
than  at  sea-level ;  at  six  thousand  feet  it  begins 
to  darken  and  deepen,  and  it  seems  to  fit  in  the 
saddles  and  notches  of  the  mountains  like  a 
block  of  lapis  lazuli ;  at  eight  thousand  feet  it 


Blue  as  a 
color. 


Sky  from 
mountain 
heights. 


98 


THE  DESERT 


The  night 
sky. 


Blackness 
o/spokce. 


Bright  sky- 
color  i. 


has  darkened  still  more  and  has  a  violet  hue 
about  it.  The  night  sky  at  this  altitude  is  al- 
most weird  in  its  purples.  A  deep  violet  fits 
up  close  to  the  rim  of  the  moon,  and  the  orb 
itself  looks  like  a  silver  wafer  pasted  upon  the 
sky. 

The  darkening  of  the  sky  continues  as  the 
height  increases.  If  one  could  rise  to,  say,  fifty 
thousand  feet,  he  would  probably  see  the  sun 
only  as  a  shining  point  of  light,  and  the  firma- 
ment merely  as  a  blue-black  background.  The 
diffusion  of  light  must  decrease  with  the  grow- 
ing thinness  of  the  atmospheric  envelope.  At 
what  point  it  would  cease  and  the  sky  become 
perfectly  black  would  be  difficult  to  say,  but 
certainly  the  limit  would  be  reached  when  our 
atmosphere  practically  ceased  to  exist.  Space 
from  necessity  must  be  black  except  where  the 
straight  beams  of  light  stream  from  the  sun  and 
the  stars. 

The  bright  sky-colors,  the  spectacular  effects, 
are  not  to  be  found  high  up  in  the  blue  of  the 
dome.  The  air  in  the  zenith  is  too  thin,  too 
free  from  dust,  to  take  deep  colorings  of  red 
and  orange.  Those  colors  belong  near  the  earth, 
along  the  horizons  where  the  aerial  envelope  is 
dense.     The  lower  strata  of  atmosphere  are  in 


DESEKT  SKY  AND  CLOUDS 


99 


fact  responsible  for  the  gorgeous  sunsets,  the 
tinted  hazes,  the  Indian-summer  skies,  the  hot 
September  glows.  These  all  appear  in  their 
splendor  when  the  sun  is  near  the  horizon-line 
and  its  beams  are  falling  through  the  many 
miles  of  hot,  dust-laden  air  that  lie  along  the 
surface  of  the  earth.  The  air  at  sunset  after 
a  day  of  intense  heat-radiation  is  usually  so 
thick  that  only  the  long  and  strong  waves  of 
color  can  pass  through  it.  The  blues  are  al- 
most lost,  the  neutral  tints  are  missing,  the 
greens  are  seen  but  faintly.  The  waves  of  red 
and  yellow  are  the  only  ones  that  travel  through 
the  thick  air  with  force.  And  these  are  the 
colors  that  tell  us  the  story  of  the  desert  sunset. 
Ordinarily  the  sky  at  evening  over  the  desert, 
when  seen  without  clouds,  shows  the  colors  of 
the  spectrum  beginning  with  red  at  the  bottom 
and  running  through  the  yellows,  greens,  and 
blues  up  to  the  purple  of  the  zenith.  In 
cool  weather,  however,  this  spectrum  arrange- 
ment seems  swept  out  of  existence  by  a  broad 
band  of  yellow-green  that  stretches  half  way 
around  the  circle.  It  is  a  pale  yellow  fading 
into  a  pale  green,  which  in  turn  melts  into  a 
pale  blue.  In  hot  weather  this  pallor  is  changed 
to  something  much  richer  and  deeper.    A  band 


100 


THE  DESERT 


The  orange 
sky. 


Desert 
eUntda. 


of  orange  takes  its  place.  It  is  a  flame-colored  or- 
ange, and  its  hue  is  felt  in  reflection  upon  valley, 
plain,  and  mountain  peak.  This  indeed  is  the 
orange  light  that  converts  the  air  in  the  moun- 
tain canyons  into  golden  mist,  and  is  measur- 
ably responsible  for  the  yellow  sunshafts  that, 
streaming  through  the  pinnacles  of  the  western 
mountains,  reach  far  across  the  upper  sky  in 
ever-widening  bands.  This  great  orange  belt  is 
lacking  in  that  variety  and  vividness  of  coloring 
that  comes  with  clouds,  but  it  is  not  wanting 
in  a  splendor  of  its  own.  It  is  the  broadest,  the 
simplest,  and  in  many  respects  the  sublimest 
sunset  imaginable — a  golden  dream  with  the 
sky  enthroned  in  glory  and  the  earth  at  its  feet 
reflecting  its  lustre. 

But  the  more  brilliant  sunsets  are  only  seen 
when  there  are  broken  translucent  clouds  in 
the  west.  There  are  cloudy  days  even  on 
the  desert.  After  many  nights  of  heat,  long 
skeins  of  white  stratus  will  gather  along  the 
horizons,  and  out  of  them  will  slowly  be  woven 
forms  of  the  cumulus  and  the  nimbus.  And  it 
will  rain  in  short  squalls  of  great  violence  on 
the  lomas,  mesas,  and  bordering  mountains. 
But  usually  the  cloud  that  drenches  a  mountain 
top  eight  thousand  feet  up  will  pass  over  an 


DESERT  SKY  AND  CLOUDS 


101 


intervening  valley,  pouring  down  the  same  flood 
of  rain,  and  yet  not  a  drop  of  it  reaching  the 
ground.  The  air  is  always  dry  and  the  rain- 
drop that  has  to  fall  through  eight  thousand 
feet  of  it  before  reaching  the  earth,  never  gets 
there.  It  is  evaporated  and  carried  up  to  its 
parent  cloud  again.  During  the  so-called  "  rainy 
season  "  you  may  frequently  see  clouds  all  about 
the  horizon  and  overhead  that  are  *^  raining  *' 
— letting  down  long  tails  and  sheets  of  rain  that 
are  plainly  visible;  but  they  never  touch  the 
earth.  The  sheet  lightens,  breaks,  and  dissi- 
pates two  thousand  feet  up.  It  rains,  true 
enough,  but  there  is  no  water,  just  as  there  are 
desert  rivers,  but  they  have  no  visible  stream. 
That  is  the  desert  of  it  both  above  and  below. 

With  the  rain  come  trooping  almost  all  the 
cloud-forms  known  to  the  sky.  And  the  thick 
ones  like  the  nimbus  carry  with  them  a  chilling, 
deadening  effect.  The  rolls  and  sheets  of  rain- 
clouds  that  cover  the  heavens  at  times  rob  the 
desert  of  light,  air,  and  color  at  one  fell  swoop. 
Its  beauty  vanishes  as  by  magic.  Instead  of 
colored  haze  there  is  gray  gloom  settling  along 
the  hills  and  about  the  mesas.  The  sands  lose 
their  lustre  and  become  dull  and  formless,  the 
vegetation  darkens  to  a  dead  gray,  and  the 


Rair\fda.     , 


Efect  of  the 
mmhus. 


102 


THE  DESEKT 


CumtUi. 


Heap  eUmds 
at  sunset. 


StroH. 


mountains  tnrn  slate-colored,  mouldy,  unwhole- 
some looking.  A  mantle  of  drab  envelops  the 
scene,  and  the  glory  of  the  desert  has  departed. 

All  the  other  cloud-forms,  being  more  or  less 
transparent,  seem  to  aid  rather  than  to  obscure 
the  splendor  of  the  sky.  The  most  common 
clouds  of  all  are  the  cumuli.  In  hot  summer 
afternoons  they  gather  and  heap  up  in  huge 
masses  with  turrets  and  domes  of  light  that  reach 
at  times  forty  thousand  feet  above  the  earth. 
At  sunset  they  begin  to  show  color  before  any 
of  the  other  clouds.  If  seen  against  the  sun 
their  edges  at  first  gleam  silver-white  and  then 
change  to  gold ;  if  along  the  horizon  to  the 
north  or  south,  or  lying  back  in  the  eastern  sky, 
they  show  dazzling  white  like  a  snowy  Alp. 
As  the  sun  disappears  below  the  line  they  begin 
to  warm  in  color,  turning  yellow,  pink,  and  rose. 
Finally  they  darken  into  lilac  and  purple,  then 
sink  and  disappear  entirely.  The  smaller  forms 
of  cumulus  that  appear  in  the  west  at  evening 
are  always  splashes  of  sunset  color,  sometimes 
being  shot  through  with  yellow  or  scarlet.  They 
ultimately  appear  floating  against  the  night  sky 
as  spots  of  purple  and  gray. 

Above  the  cumuli  and  often  flung  across  them 
like  bands  of  gauze,  are  the  strati — clouds  of 


DESERT  SKY  AND  CLOUDS 


103 


the  middle  air  region.  This  veil  or  sheet-cloud 
might  be  called  a  twilight  cloud,  giving  out  as 
it  does  its  greatest  splendor  after  the  sun  has 
disappeared  below  the  verge.  It  then  takes  all 
colors  and  with  singular  vividness.  At  times  it 
will  overspread  the  whole  west  as  a  sheet  of 
brilliant  magenta,  but  more  frequently  it  blares 
with  scarlet,  carmine,  crimson,  flushing  up  and 
then  fading  out,  shifting  from  one  color  to 
another ;  and  finally  dying  out  in  a  beautiful 
ashes  of  roses.  When  these  clouds  and  all  their 
variations  have  faded  into  lilac  and  deep  pur- 
ples, there  are  still  bright  spots  of  color  in  the 
upper  sky  where  the  cirri  are  receiving  the  last 
rays  of  the  sun. 

The  cirrus  with  its  many  feathery  and  fleecy 
forms  is  the  thinnest,  the  highest,  and  the  most 
brilliant  in  light  of  all  the  clouds.  Perhaps  its 
brilliancy  is  due  to  its  being  an  ice-cloud.  It 
seems  odd  that  here  in  the  desert  with  so  much 
heat  rising  and  tempering  the  upper  air  there 
should  be  clouds  of  ice  but  a  few  miles  above  it. 
The  cirrus  and  also  the  higher  forms  of  the 
cumulo-stratus  are  masses  of  hoar-frost,  spicules 
of  ice  floating  in  the  air,  instead  of  tiny  glob- 
ules of  vapor. 

There  is  nothing  remarkable  about  the  desert 


Cirri. 


Ice-clouds. 


104 


THE  DESERT 


Clouds  qf 
fire. 


The  celestial 
tapestry. 


The  desert 
moon. 


clouds — that  is  nothing  very  different  from  the 
clouds  of  other  countries — except  in  light,  color, 
and  background.  They  appear  incomparably 
more  brilliant  and  fiery  here  than  elsewhere  on 
the  globe.  The  colors,  like  everything  else  on 
the  desert,  are  intense  in  their  power,  fierce  in 
their  glare.  They  vibrate,  they  scintillate,  they 
penetrate  and  tinge  everything  with  their  hue. 
And  then,  as  though  heaping  splendor  upon 
splendor,  what  a  wonderful  background  they 
are  woven  upon  !  Great  bands  of  orange,  green, 
and  blue  that  all  the  melted  and  fused  gems 
in  the  world  could  not  match  for  translucent 
beauty.  Taken  as  a  whole,  as  a  celestial  tapes- 
try, as  a  curtain  of  flame  drawn  between  night 
and  day,  and  what  land  or  sky  can  rival  it ! 

After  the  clouds  have  all  shifted  into  purples 
and  the  western  sky  has  sunk  into  night,  then 
up  from  the  east  the  moon  —  the  misshapen 
orange-hued  desert  moon.  How  large  it  looks  I 
And  how  it  warms  the  sky,  and  silvers  the  edges 
of  the  mountain  peaks,  and  spreads  its  wide 
light  across  the  sands  !  Up,  up  it  rises,  losing 
something  of  its  orange  and  gaining  something 
in  symmetry.  In  a  few  hours  it  is  high  in  the 
heavens  and  has  a  great  aureole  of  color  about 
it.     Look  at  the  ring  for  a  moment  and  you  will 


DESERT   SKY  AND  CLOUDS 


105 


see  all  the  spectrum  colors  arranged  in  order. 
Pale  hues  they  are  but  they  are  all  there.  Rain- 
bows by  day  and  rainbows  by  night !  Kadiant 
circles  of  colored  light — not  one  but  many. 
Arches  above  arches — ^not  two  or  three  but  five 
solar  bows  in  the  sky  at  one  time  !  What 
strange  tales  come  out  of  the  wilderness  I  But 
how  much  stranger,  how  much  more  weird  and 
extraordinary  the  things  that  actually  happen 
in  this  desert  land. 

High  in  the  zenith  rides  the  desert  moon. 
What  a  flood  of  light  comes  from  it !  What 
pale,  phosphorescent  light !  Under  it  miles  and 
miles  of  cactus  and  grease-wood  are  half  re- 
vealed, half  hidden  ;  and  far  away  against  the 
dark  mountains  the  dunes  of  the  desert  shine 
white  as  snow-clad  hills  in  December.  The 
stars  are  forth,  the  constellations  in  their  places, 
the  planets  large  and  luminous,  yet  none  of 
them  has  much  color  or  sparkle.  The  moon 
dims  them  somewhat,  but  even  without  the 
moon  they  have  not  the  twinkle  of  the  stars  in 
higher,  colder  latitudes.  The  desert  air  seems 
to  veil  their  lustre  somewhat,  and  yet  as  points 
of  light  set  in  that  purple  dome  of  sky  how 
beautiful  they  are  ! 

Lying  down  there  in  the  sands  of  the  desert. 


Ringt  and 
rainbows* 


MoonlighU 


Start, 


106 


THE  DESERT 


The  mid- 
night sky. 


Alone  in  the 
desert. 


The 
mysteries. 


alone  and  at  night,  with  a  saddle  for  yonr  pil- 
low, and  yonr  eyes  staring  upward  at  the  stars, 
how  incomprehensible  it  all  seems !  The  im- 
mensity and  the  mystery  are  appalling;  and 
yet  how  these  very  features  attract  the  thought 
and  draw  the  curiosity  of  man.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  the  unattainable  and  the  insurmount- 
able we  keep  sending  a  hope,  a  doubt,  a  query, 
up  through  the  realms  of  air  to  Saturn's 
throne.  What  key  have  we  wherewith  to  un- 
lock that  door  ?  We  cannot  comprehend  a  tiny 
flame  of  our  own  invention  called  electricity, 
yet  we  grope  at  the  meaning  of  the  blazing 
splendor  of  Arcturus.  Around  us  stretches 
the  great  sand-wrapped  desert  whose  mystery 
no  man  knows,  and  not  even  the  Sphinx  could 
reveal ;  yet  beyond  it,  above  it,  upward  still 
upward,  we  seek  the  mysteries  of  Orion  and 
the  Pleiades. 

What  is  it  that  draws  us  to  the  boundless  and 
the  fathomless  ?  Why  should  the  lovely  things 
of  earth — the  grasses,  the  trees,  the  lakes,  the 
little  hills  —  appear  trivial  and  insignificant 
when  we  come  face  to  face  with  the  sea  or  the 
desert  or  the  vastness  of  the  midnight  sky  ?  Is 
it  that  the  one  is  the  tale  of  things  known  and 
the  other  merely  a  hint,  a  suggestion  of  the  un- 


DESERT  SKY  AND   CLOUDS 


107 


known?  Or  have  immensity,  space,  magnitude 
a  peculiar  beauty  of  their  own  ?  Is  it  not  true 
that  bulk  and  breadth  are  primary  and  essen- 
tial qualities  of  the  sublime  in  landscape  ?  And 
is  it  not  the  sublime  that  we  feel  in  immensity 
and  mystery  ?  If  so,  perhaps  we  have  a  partial 
explanation  of  our  love  for  sky  and  sea  and 
desert  waste.  They  are  the  great  elements. 
We  do  not  see,  we  hardly  know  if  their  boun- 
daries are  limited ;  we  only  feel  their  immen- 
sity, their  mystery,  and  their  beauty. 

And  quite  as  impressive  as  the  mysteries  are 
the  silences.  Was  there  ever  such  a  stillness  as 
that  which  rests  upon  the  desert  at  night !  Was 
there  ever  such  a  hush  as  that  which  steals 
from  star  to  star  across  the  firmament  !  You 
perhaps  think  to  break  the  spell  by  raising  your 
voice  in  a  cry ;  but  you  will  not  do  so  again. 
The  sound  goes  but  a  little  way  and  then  seems 
to  come  back  to  your  ear  with  a  suggestion  of 
insanity  about  it. 

A  cry  in  the  night !  Overhead  the  planets 
in  their  courses  make  no  sound,  the  earth  is 
still,  the  very  animals  are  mute.  Why  then  the 
cry  of  the  human  ?  How  it  jars  the  harmo- 
nies !  How  it  breaks  in  discord  upon  the  uni- 
ties of  earth  and  air  and  sky !    Century  after 


Space  and 
immensity. 


The  silences. 


The  cry  of 
the  human. 


108 


THE  DESERT 


century  that  cry  has  gone  up,  mobbing  high 
heaven  ;  and  always  insanity  in  the  cry,  insan- 
ity in  the  crier.  What  folly  to  protest  where 
none  shall  hear  I  There  is  no  appeal  from  the 
law  of  nature.  It  was  made  for  beast  and  bird 
and  creeping  thing.  Will  the  human  never  learn 
that  in  the  eye  of  the  law  he  is  not  different 
from  the  things  that  creep  ? 


CHAPTER  VII 
ILLUSIONS 

In"  our  studies  of  landscape  we  are  very  fre- 
quently made  the  victims  of  either  illusion  or 
delusion.  The  eye  or  the  mind  deceives  us, 
and  sometimes  the  two  may  join  forces  to  our 
complete  confusion.  We  are  not  willing  to 
admit  different  reports  of  an  appearance.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  in  us  insists  that  there  can  be 
only  one  truth,  and  everything  else  must  be 
error.  It  is  known,  for  instance,  that  Castle 
Dome,  which  looks  down  on  the  Colorado  River 
from  Western  Arizona,  is  a  turret  of  granite — 
gray,  red,  brown,  rock-colored,  whatever  color 
you  please.  With  that  antecedent  knowledge 
in  mind  how  difficult  it  is  for  us  to  believe  the 
report  of  our  eyes  which  says  that  at  sunset  the 
dome  is  amethystine,  golden,  crimson,  or  per- 
haps lively  purple.  The  reality  is  one  thing, 
the  appearance  quite  another  thing ;  but  why 
are  not  both  of  them  truthful  ? 

And  how  very  shy  people  are  about  accepting 
109 


Reality  and 
appearance. 


110 


THE  DESERT 


Pre^ 

conceived 
impressions. 


Deception 
by  sunlight. 


Distorted 
forms  and 
colors. 


a  pink  air,  a  blue  shadow,  or  a  field  of  yellow 
grass — sunlit  lemon-yellow  grass  !  They  have 
been  brought  up  from  youth  to  believe  that  air 
is  colorless,  that  shadows  are  brown  or  gray  or 
sooty  black,  and  that  grass  is  green — bottle- 
green.  The  preconceived  impression  of  the 
mind  refuses  to  make  room  for  the  actual  im- 
pression of  the  eyes,  and  in  consequence  we  are 
misled  and  deluded. 

But  do  the  eyes  themselves  always  report  the 
truth  ?  Yes  ;  the  truth  of  appearances,  but  as 
regards  the  reality  they  may  deceive  you  quite 
as  completely  as  the  mind  deceives  you  about 
the  apparent.  And  for  the  deception  of  the 
eyes  there  is  no  wizard's  cell  or  magician's  cabi- 
net so  admirably  fitted  for  jugglery  as  this  bare 
desert  under  sunlight.  Its  combination  of 
light  and  air  seem  like  reflecting  mirrors  that 
forever  throw  the  misshapen  image  in  unex- 
pected places,  in  unexpected  lights  and  colors. 

What,  for  instance,  could  be  more  perplexing 
than  the  odd  distortions  in  the  forms  and  col- 
ors of  the  desert  mountains  !  A  range  of  these 
mountains  may  often  look  abnormally  grand, 
even  majestic  in  the  early  morning  as  they 
stand  against  the  eastern  sky.  The  outlines  of 
the  ridges  and  peaks  may  be  clear  cut,  the  light 


ILLUSIONS 


111 


and  shade  of  the  canyons  and  barrancas  well 
marked,  the  cool  morning  colors  of  the  face- 
walls  and  foot-hills  distinctly  placed  and  hold- 
ing their  proper  value  in  the  scene.  But  by 
noon  the  whole  range  has  apparently  lost  its 
lines  and  shrunken  in  size.  Under  the  beating 
rays  of  the  sun  and  surrounded  by  wavering 
heated  atmosphere  its  shadow-masses  have  been 
grayed  down,  neutralized,  perhaps  totally  oblit- 
erated ;  and  the  long  mountain  surface  appears 
as  flat  as  a  garden  wall,  as  smooth  as  a  row  of 
sand-dunes.  There  is  no  indication  of  bar- 
ranca or  canyon.  The  air  has  a  blue-steel  glow 
that  muffles  light  and  completely  wrecks  color. 
Seen  through  it  the  escarpments  show  only 
dull  blue  and  gray.  All  the  reds,  yellows,  and 
pinks  of  the  rocks  are  gone  ;  the  surfaces  wear 
a  burnt-out  aspect  as  though  fire  had  eaten  into 
them  and  left  behind  only  a  comb  of  volcanic 
ash. 

At  evening,  however,  the  range  seems  to  re- 
turn to  its  majesty  and  magnitude.  The  peaks 
reach  up,  the  bases  broaden,  the  walls  break 
into  gashes,  the  ridges  harden  into  profiles. 
The  sun  is  westering,  and  the  light  falling 
more  obliquely  seems  to  bring  out  the  shadows 
in  the  canyons  and  barrancas.     Last  of  all  the 


Changed 
appearance 
of  moun- 
tains. 


Changes  in 
line,  lioht, 
and  color. 


112 


THE  DESERT 


False  per- 
spective. 


Abnormal 
foreshort- 
ening. 


colors  come  slowly  back  to  their  normal  con- 
dition, as  the  flush  of  life  to  one  recovering 
from  a  trance.  One  by  one  they  begin  to  glow 
on  chasm,  wall,  and  needled  summit.  The  air, 
too,  changes  from  steel-blue  to  yellow,  from  yel- 
low to  pink,  from  pink  to  lilac,  until  at  last 
with  the  sun  on  the  rim  of  the  earth,  the  moun- 
tains, the  air,  the  clouds,  and  the  sky  are  all 
glowing  with  the  tints  of  ruby,  topaz,  rose- dia- 
mond— hues  of  splendor,  of  grandeur,  of  glory. 
Suppose,  if  you  please,  a  similar  range  of 
mountains  thirty  miles  away  on  the  desert. 
Even  at  long  distance  it  shows  an  imposing 
bulk  against  the  sky,  and  you  think  if  you  were 
close  to  it,  wall  and  peak  would  loom  colossal. 
How  surprised  you  are  then  as  you  ride  toward 
it,  hour  after  hour,  to  find  that  it  does  not  seem 
to  grow  in  size.  When  you  reach  the  foot-hills 
the  high  mountains  seem  little  larger  than  when 
seen  at  a  distance.  You  are  further  surprised 
that  what  appeared  like  a  flat-faced  range  with 
its  bases  touching  an  imaginary  curb-stone  for 
miles,  is  in  reality  a  group-range  with  retiring 
mountains  on  either  side  that  lead  off  on  acute 
angles.  The  group  is  round,  and  has  as  much 
breadth  as  length.  And  still  greater  is  your 
surprise  when  you  discover  that  the  green  top 


ILLUSIONS 


113 


of  the  gray-based  mountain,  which  has  been 
puzzling  you  for  so  many  hours,  does  not  be- 
long to  the  gray  base  at  all.  It  is  a  pine-clad 
top  resting  upon  another  and  more  massive  base 
far  back  in  the  group.  It  is  the  highest  and 
most  central  peak  of  the  range. 

Such  illusions  are  common,  easily  explained  ; 
and  yet,  after  all,  not  so  easily  understood.  They 
are  caused  by  false  perspective,  which  in  turn 
is  caused  by  light  and  air.  On  the  desert,  per- 
spective is  always  erratic.  Bodies  fail  to  detach 
themselves  one  from  another,  foreshortening  is 
abnormal,  the  planes  of  landscape  are  flattened 
out  of  shape  or  telescoped,  objects  are  huddled 
together  or  superimposed  one  upon  another. 
The  disturbance  in  aerial  perspective  is  just 
as  bad.  Colors,  lights,  and  shadows  fall  into 
contradictions  and  denials,  they  shirk  and  bear 
false  witness,  and  confuse  the  judgment  of  the 
most  experienced. 

No  wonder  amid  this  distortion  of  the  natural, 
this  wreck  of  perspective,  that  distance  is  such 
a  proverbially  unknown  quantity.  It  is  the  one 
thing  the  desert  dweller  speaks  about  with  cau- 
tion. It  may  be  thirty  or  fifty  miles  to  that 
picacho — he  is  afraid  to  hazard  a  guess.  If  you 
should  go  up  to  the  top  of  your  mountain  range 


Contradie- 
tions  and 
denials. 


Deceptive 
distances. 


114 


THE  DESERT 


Dangers  of 
the  desert 


Immensity 
of  valley- 
plains. 


and  look  at  the  valley  beyond  it,  the  distance 
across  might  seem  very  slight.  You  can  easily 
see  to  where  another  mountain  range  begins 
and  trails  away  into  the  distance.  Perhaps  you 
fancy  a  few  hours'  ride  will  take  you  over  that 
valley-plain  to  where  the  distant  foot-hills  are 
lying  soft  and  warm  at  the  bases  of  the  moun- 
tains. You  may  be  right  and  then  again  you 
may  be  wrong.  You  may  spend  two  days  get- 
ting to  those  foot-hills. 

This  deception  of  distance  is  not  infrequently 
accompanied  by  fatal  consequences.  The  inex- 
perienced traveller  thinks  the  distance  short,  he 
can  easily  get  over  the  ground  in  a  few  hours. 
But  how  the  long  leagues  drag  out,  spin  out, 
reach  out !  The  day  is  gone  and  he  is  not 
there,  the  slight  supply  of  water  is  gone  and 
he  is  not  there,  his  horse  is  gone  and  he  himself 
is  going,  but  he  is  not  there.  The  story  and  its 
ending  are  familiar  to  those  who  live  near  the 
desert,  for  every  year  some  mining  or  explor- 
ing party  is  lost  If  there  are  any  survivors 
they  usually  make  the  one  report :  ''  The  dis- 
tance seemed  so  short.'*  But  there  are  no  short 
distances  on  the  desert.  Every  valley-plain  is 
an  immense  wilderness  of  space. 

There  is  another  illusion — a  harmless  one — 


ILLUSIONS 


115 


that  has  not  to  do  with  perspective  but  with 
shadow  and  local  color.  The  appearance  is  that 
of  shadows  cast  down  along  the  mountain's  side 
by  the  ridges  or  hogbacks.  Any  little  patch  of 
shadow  is  welcome  on  the  desert,  particularly 
upon  the  mountains  which  are  always  so  strongly 
flooded  with  light.  But  this  is  only  a  counter- 
feit presentment.  The  ridges  have  no  vegetation 
upon  them  to  hold  in  place  the  soil  and  rocks 
and  these  are  continually  breaking  away  into 
land-slips.  The  slips  or  slides  expose  to  view 
streaks  of  local  color  such  as  may  be  seen  in 
veins  of  iron  and  copper,  in  beds  of  lignite  or 
layers  of  slate.  It  is  these  streaks  and  patches 
of  dark  color  that  have  broken  away  and  slipped 
down  the  mountain  side  under  the  ridges  that 
give  the  appearance  of  shadows.  They  have 
the  true  value  in  light,  and  are  fair  to  look  upon 
even  though  they  are  deception.  The  weather- 
beaten  rocks  of  a  talus  under  a  peak  may  create 
a  similar  illusion,  but  the  shadow  effect  loses  a 
velvety  quality  which  it  has  when  seen  under 
the  ridges. 

The  illusion  of  a  cloud-shadow  resting  upon 
the  foot-hills  or  in  the  valley,  is  frequently  pro- 
duced by  the  local  color  of  lava-beds.  Lava 
may  be  of  almost  any  color,  but  when  seen  close 


Shadow 
illimions. 


Color- 
patches  on 
mountains. 


116 


THE  DESERT 


Illusion  of 
lava-beds. 


Appearance 

o/eloudr 

shcuUnM. 


Mirage, 


Definition. 


to  view  it  is  usually  a  reddish-black.  At  a  dis- 
tance, however,  and  as  a  mass,  its  beds  have  the 
exact  value  of  a  cloud-shadow.  Any  eye  would 
be  deceived  by  it.  The  great  inundations  of 
lava  that  have  overrun  the  plains  and  oozed 
down  the  foot-hills  and  around  the  lomas  (par- 
ticularly on  the  Mojave)  look  the  shadow  to  the 
very  life.  The  beds  are  usually  hedged  about 
on  all  sides  by  banks  of  fine  sand  that  seem  to 
stand  for  sunlight  surrounding  the  shadow,  and 
thus  the  deception  is  materially  augmented. 
Many  times  I  have  looked  up  at  the  sky  to  be 
sure  there  was  no  cloud  there,  so  palpable  is  this 
lava  shadow-illusion. 

But  perhaps  the  most  beautiful  deception 
known  to  the  desert  is  the  one  oftenest  seen 
— mirage.  Everyone  is  more  or  less  familiar 
with  it,  for  it  appears  in  some  form  wherever 
the  air  is  heated,  thickened,  or  has  strata  of 
different  densities.  It  shows  on  the  water,  on 
the  grass  plains,  over  ploughed  fields  or  gravel 
roads,  on  roadbeds  of  railways ;  but  the  bare 
desert  with  its  strong  heat-radiation  is  pri- 
marily its  home.  The  cause  of  its  appearance 
— or  at  least  one  of  its  appearances — is  familiar 
knowledge,  but  it  may  be  well  to  state  it  in 
dictionary  terms  :  "  An  optical  illusion  due  to 


ILLUSIONS 


117 


excessive  bending  of  light-rays  in  traversing 
adjacent  layers  of  air  of  widely  different  densi- 
ties, whereby  distorted,  displaced,  or  inverted 
images  are  produced."  * 

This  is  no  doubt  the  true  explanation  of  that 
form  of  mirage  in  which  people  on  Sahara  see 
caravans  in  the  sky  trailing  along,  upside  down, 
like  flies  upon  the  ceiling  ;  or  on  the  ocean  see 
ships  hanging  in  the  air,  masts  and  sails  down- 
ward. But  the  explanation  is  very  general  and 
is  itself  in  some  need  of  explanation.  Perhaps 
then  I  may  be  pardoned  for  trying  to  illustrate 
the  theory  of  mirage  in  my  own  way. 

The  rays  of  light  that  come  from  the  sun  to 
the  earth  appear  to  travel  in  a  straight  line, 
but  they  never  do.  As  soon  as  they  meet  with 
and  pass  into  the  atmospheric  envelope  they  are 
bent  or  deflected  from  their  original  direction 
and  reach  the  earth  by  obtuse  angles  or  in  long 
descending  curves  like  a  spent  rifle  ball.  This 
bending  of  the  rays  is  called  refraction,  which 
must  not  be  confounded  with  reflection — a  some- 
thing quite  different.  Now  refraction  is,  of 
course,  the  greatest  where  the  atmosphere  is  the 
densest.  The  thicker  the  air  the  more  acute  the 
bending  of  the  light-ray.  Hence  the  thick  lay- 
*  Century  Dictionary. 


Need  of  ex- 
planation. 


Re/raetion 
of  light- 
rays. 


118 


THE  DESERT 


Dense  air- 
atrata. 


Illustration 
of  camera- 
lm$. 


ers  of  air  lying  along  or  a  few  feet  above  the 
surface  of  the  earth  on  a  hot  day  are  peculiarly 
well-fitted  to  distort  the  light-ray,  and  conse- 
quently well-fitted  to  produce  the  effect  of  mir- 
age. These  layers  of  air  are  of  varying  densi- 
ties. Some  are  thicker  than  others  ;  and  in 
this  respect  the  atmosphere  bears  a  resemblance 
to  an  ordinary  photographic  or  telescopic  lens. 
Let  us  use  the  lens  illustration  for  a  moment 
and  perhaps  it  will  aid  comprehension  of  the 
subject. 

You  know  that  the  lens,  like  the  air,  is  of 
varying  thicknesses  or  densities,  and  you  know 
that  in  the  ordinary  camera  the  rays  of  light, 
passing  through  the  upper  part  of  the  lens, 
are  refracted  or  bent  toward  the  perpendicular 
so  that  they  reach  the  ground-glass  "  finder  " 
at  the  bottom ;  and  that  the  rays  passing 
through  the  lower  part  of  the  lens  go  to  the  top 
of  the  *' finder."  The  result  is  that  you  have 
on  the  "  finder  "  or  the  negative  something  re- 
versed— things  upside  down.  That,  so  far  as 
the  reversed  image  goes,  is  precisely  the  case  in 
mirage.  The  air-layers  act  as  a  lens  and  bend 
the  light-rays  so  that  when  seen  in  our  *'  finder  " 
— the  eye — the  bottom  of  a  tree,  for  example, 
goes  to  the  top  and  the  top  goes  to  the  bottom. 


ILLUSIONS 


119 


But  there  is  something  more  to  mirage  than 
this  reversed  image.  The  eyes  do  not  see  things 
'*  in  their  place/*  but  see  them  hanging  in  the 
air  as  in  the  case  of  ships  and  caravans.  To 
explain  this,  in  the  absence  of  a  diagram,  we 
shall  have  to  take  up  another  illustration.  Sup- 
pose a  light-ray  so  violently  bent  by  the  heat 
lying  above  a  sidewalk  that  it  should  come  to 
us  around  a  street  corner,  and  thereby  we  should 
see  a  man  coming  up  a  side  street  that  lies  at 
right  angles  to  us.  He  would  appear  to  our 
eyes  to  be  coming  up,  not  the  side  street,  but 
the  street  we  are  standing  in.  The  man,  to  all 
appearances,  would  not  be  "  in  his  place."  We 
should  see  him  where  he  is  not. 

Now  suppose  again  instead  of  the  light-rays 
bending  to  right  or  left  (as  in  the  street-corner 
illustration),  we  consider  them  as  bending  sky- 
ward or  earthward.  Suppose  yourself  at  sea 
and  that  you  are  looking  up  into  the  sky  above 
the  horizon.  You  see  there  a  ship  "  out  of  its 
place/'  hanging  in  the  air  in  an  impossible 
manner — something  which  is  equivalent,  or  at 
least  analogous,  to  looking  down  the  street  and 
seeing  the  image  of  the  man  around  the  comer. 
You  are  looking  straight  into  the  sky,  yet  see- 
ing a  ship  below  the  verge.      The  light-rays 


The  bent 
light-ray. 


Ships  at 


120 


THE   DESERT 


Ships  up- 
tidedown. 


Wherein  the 
iUtision. 


coming  from  the  ship  on  the  water  describe  an 
obtuse  angle  or  curve  in  reaching  the  eye.  The 
rays  from  the  bottom  of  the  ship,  lying  in  a 
dense  part  of  the  air-lens,  are  more  acutely 
bent  than  those  from  the  masts,  and  hence  they 
go  to  the  top  of  the  photographic  plate  or  your 
field  of  vision,  whereas  the  rays  from  the  ship's 
masts,  being  in  a  thinner  atmosphere,  are  less 
violently  bent,  and  thus  go  to  the  bottom  of  your 
field  of  vision.  The  result  is  the  ship  high  in 
air  above  the  horizon-line  and  upside  down. 

The  illusion  or  deception  consists  in  this : 
We  usually  see  things  in  flat  trajectory,  so  to 
speak.  Light  comes  to  us  in  comparatively 
straight  rays.  The  mind,  therefore,  has  formu- 
lated a  law  that  we  see  only  by  straight  rays. 
In  the  case  of  mirage  the  light  comes  to  us  on 
curved,  bent,  or  angular  rays.  The  eyes  recog- 
nize this,  but  the  mind  refuses  to  believe  it  and 
hence  is  deceived.  We  think  we  see  the  ship 
in  the  air  by  the  straight  ray,  but  in  reality  we 
see  the  ship  on  the  water  by  the  bent  ray.  It 
is  thus  that  ships  are  often  seen  when  far  below 
the  horizon-line,  and  that  islands  in  the  sea  be- 
low the  ocean's  rim,  and  so  far  away  as  a  hun- 
dred miles,  are  seen  looming  in  the  air.  "  Loom- 
ing "  is  the  word  that  describes  the  excessive 


ILLUSIONS 


121 


apparent  elevation  of  the  object  in  the  sky  and 
is  more  striking  on  sea  than  land.  Captains  of 
vessels  often  tell  strange  tales  of  how  high  in 
the  air,  ships  and  towns  and  coasts  are  seen. 
The  report  has  even  come  back  from  Alaska  of 
a  city  seen  in  the  sky  that  is  supposed  to  be  the 
city  of  Bristol.  In  tropical  countries  and  over 
warm  ocean-currents  there  are  often  very  acute 
bondings  of  the  light-rays.  Why  may  it  not  be 
so  in  colder  lands  with  colder  currents  ? 

The  form  of  mirage  that  gives  us  the  reversed 
image  is  seen  on  the  desert  as  well  as  on  the 
sea ;  but  not  frequently — at  least  not  in  my  ex- 
perience. There  is  an  illusion  of  mountains 
hanging  peak  downward  from  the  sky,  but  one 
may  wander  on  the  deserts  for  months  and 
never  see  it.  The  reality  and  the  phantom 
both  appear  in  the  view — the  phantom  seeming 
to  draw  up  and  out  of  the  original  in  a  dis- 
torted, cloud-like  shape.  It  is  almost  always 
misshapen,  and  as  it  rises  high  in  air  it  seems 
to  be  detached  from  the  original  by  currents  of 
air  drifted  in  between.  More  familiar  sights 
are  the  appearances  of  trees,  animals,  houses, 
wagons,  all  hanging  in  the  air  in  enlarged  and 
elongated  shapes  and,  of  course,  reversed.  I 
have  seen  horses  hitched  to  a  wagon  hanging 


"Looming' 
of  vessels, 
islands, 
and  cities. 


Reversed 
image  of 
mountains. 


UNIVEKolTY 


V 


122 


THE  DESERT 


high  up  in  the  air  with  the  legs  of  the  horses 
twenty  feet  long  and  the  wagon  as  large  as  a 
cabin.  The  stilted  antelope  ''forty  feet  high 
and  upside  down''  is  as  seldom  seen  in  the 
sky  as  upon  the  earth ;  but  desert  cattle  in 
bunches  of  half  a  dozen  will  sometimes  walk 
about  on  the  aerial  ceiling  in  a  very  astonishing 
way. 

Yet  these,  too,  are  infrequent  appearances. 
Nor  is  the  illusion  of  buttes  rising  from  the 
plain  in  front  of  you  often  seen.  It  happens 
only  when  there  are  buttes  at  one  side  or  the 
other,  and,  I  presume,  this  mirage  is  caused  by 
the  bending  of  the  light-rays  to  the  right  or  left. 
It  presents  certainly  a  very  beautiful  effect. 
The  buttes  rise  up  from  the  ground,  first  one 
and  then  another,  until  there  is  a  range  of  them 
that  holds  the  appearance  of  reality  perhaps  for 
hours,  and  then  gradually  fades  out  like  a  stere- 
opticon  picture — the  bases  going  first  and  the 
tops  gradually  melting  into  the  sky.  When 
seen  at  sunset  against  a  yellow  sky  the  effect  is 
magnificent  The  buttes,  even  in  illusion,  take 
on  a  wonderful  blue  hue  (the  complementary 
color  of  yellow),  and  they  seem  to  drift  upon  the 
sky  as  upon  an  open  sea. 

The  bending  of  the  light-rays  to  either  side 


ILLUSIONS 


123 


instead  of  up  or  down,  as  following  the  perpen- 
dicular, may  or  may  not  be  of  frequent  occur- 
rence. I  do  not  even  kijow  if  the  butte  appear- 
ance is  to  be  attributed  to  that.  The  opportunity 
to  see  it  came  to  me  but  once,  and  I  had  not 
then  the  time  to  observe  whether  the  buttes  in 
the  mirage  had  sides  the  reverse  of  the  originals. 
Besides,  it  is  certain  that  mirage  is  caused  in 
other  ways  than  by  the  bending  of  light-rays. 
The  most  common  illusion  of  the  desert  is  the 
water-mirage  and  that  is  caused  by  reflection, 
not  refraction.  Its  usual  appearance  is  that  of 
a  lake  or  sea  of  water  with  what  looks  at  a  dis- 
tance to  be  small  islands  in  it.  There  are  those 
with  somewhat  more  lively  imagination  than 
their  fellows  who  can  see  cows  drinking  in  the 
water,  trees  along  the  margin  of  the  shore 
(palms  usually),  and  occasionally  a  farm-house, 
a  ship,  or  a  whale.  I  have  never  seen  any  of 
these  wonderful  things,  but  the  water  and 
island  part  of  the  illusion  is  to  be  seen  almost 
anywhere  in  the  desert  basins  during  hot  weath- 
er. In  the  lower  portions  of  the  Colorado  it 
sometimes  spreads  over  thousands  of  acres,  and 
appears  not  to  move  for  hours  at  a  stretch.  At 
other  times  the  wavering  of  the  heat  or  the 
swaying  of  the  air  strata,  or  a  change  in  the 


other 

causes  for 
mirage. 


Water- 
mirage. 


The  lake 
appearance. 


124 


THE  DESERT 


How 


MOW  pro 
ducea. 


Objects  in 
the  water. 


Confused 
mirage. 


density  of  the  air  will  give  the  appearance  of 
waves  or  slight  undulations  on  the  water.  In 
either  case  the  illusion  is  quite  perfect.  Water 
lying  in  such  a  bed  would  reflect  the  exact  color 
of  the  sky  over  it ;  and  what  the  eyes  really 
see  in  this  desert  picture  is  the  reflection  of  the 
sky  not  from  water  bat  from  strata  of  thick  air. 

This  illusion  of  water  is  probably  seen  more 
perfectly  in  the  great  dry  lake-beds  of  the  des- 
ert where  the  ground  is  very  flat  and  there  is 
no  vegetation,  than  elsewhere.  In  the  old  Coa- 
huila  Valley  region  of  the  Colorado  the  water 
comes  up  very  close  to  you  and  the  more  you 
flatten  the  angle  of  reflection  by  flattening  your- 
self upon  the  ground,  the  closer  the  water  ap- 
proaches. The  objects  in  it  which  people  im- 
agine look  like  familiar  things  are  certainly  very 
near.  And  these  objects — wild  fowl,  bushes, 
tufts  of  swamp  grass,  islands,  buttes — are  fre- 
quently bewildering  because  some  of  them  are 
right  side  up  and  some  of  them  are  not.  Some 
are  reversed  in  the  air  and  some  are  quietly 
resting  upon  the  ground. 

It  happens  at  times  that  the  whole  picture  is 
confused  by  the  light-rays  being  both  reflected 
and  refracted,  and  in  addition  that  the  rays 
from  certain  objects  come  to  us  in  a  direct  line. 


ILLUSIONS 


125 


The  ducks,  reeds,  and  tufts  of  grass,  for  instance, 
are  only  clods  of  dirt  or  sand-banked  bushes 
which  are  detached  at  the  bottom  by  heavy  drifts 
of  air.  We  see  their  tops  right  side  up  by  look- 
ing through  the  air-layer  or  some  broken  por- 
tion of  it.  But  in  the  same  scene  there  may  be 
trees  upside  down,  and  mountains  seen  in  re- 
flection, drawn  out  to  stupendous  proportions. 
In  the  Salton  Basin  one  hot  day  in  September  a 
startled  coyote  very  obligingly  ran  through  a 
most  brilliant  water-mirage  lying  directly  be- 
fore me.  I  could  only  see  his  head  and  part  of 
his  shoulders,  for  the  rest  of  him  was  cut  off 
by  the  air-layer  ;  but  the  appearance  was  that  of 
a  wolf  swimming  rapidly  across  a  lake  of  water. 
The  illusion  of  the  water  was  exact  enough  be- 
cause it  was  produced  by  reflection,  but  there 
was  no  illusion  about  the  upper  part  of  the 
coyote.  The  rays  of  light  from  his  head  and 
shoulders  came  to  me  unrefracted  and  unre- 
flected — came  as  light  usually  travels  from  ob- 
ject to  eye. 

But  refracted  or  reflected,  every  feature  of  the 
water-mirage  is  attractive.  And  sometimes  its 
kaleidoscopic  changes  keep  the  fancy  moving  at 
a  pretty  pace.  The  appearance  and  disappear- 
ance of  the  objects  and  colors  in  the  mirage 


126 


THE  DESERT 


are  often  quite  wonderful.  The  reversed  moun- 
tain peaks,  with  light  and  shade  and  color  upon 
them,  wave  in  and  out  of  the  imaginary  lake, 
and  are  perhaps  succeeded  by  undulations  of 
horizon  colors  in  grays  and  pinks,  by  sunset 
skies  and  scarlet  clouds,  or  possibly  by  the 
white  cap  of  a  distant  sierra  that  has  been 
caught  in  the  angle  of  reflection. 

But  with  all  its  natural  look  one  is  at  loss  to 
understand  how  it  could  ever  be  seriously  ac- 
cepted as  a  fact,  save  at  the  first  blush.  People 
dying  for  water  and  in  delirium  run  toward  it 
— at  least  the  more  than  twice-told  tales  of  trav- 
ellers so  report — but  I  never  knew  any  healthy 
eye  that  did  not  grow  suspicious  of  it  after  the 
first  glance.  It  trembles  and  glows  too  much 
and  soon  reveals  itself  as  something  intangible, 
hardly  of  earth,  little  more  than  a  shifting  fan- 
tasy. You  cannot  see  it  clear-cut  and  well-de- 
fined, and  the  snap-shot  of  your  camera  does 
not  catch  it  at  all. 

Yet  its  illusiveness  adds  to,  rather  than  de- 
tracts from,  its  beauty.  Rose-colored  dreams  are 
always  delightful ;  and  the  mirage  is  only  a 
dream.  It  has  no  more  substantial  fabric  than 
the  golden  haze  that  lies  in  the  canyons  at  sun- 
set    It  is  only  one  of  nature's  veilings  which 


ILLUSIONS 


127 


she  puts  on  or  off  capriciously.  But  again  its 
loveliness  is  not  the  less  when  its  uncertain, 
fleeting  character  is  revealed.  It  is  one  of  the 
desert's  most  charming  features  because  of  its 
strange  light  and  its  softly  glowing  opaline  color. 
And  there  we  have  come  back  again  to  that 
beauty  in  landscape  which  lies  not  in  the  lines 
of  mountain  valley  and  plain,  but  in  the  almost 
formless  masses  of  color  and  light. 


Beauty  qf 
mirage. 


Views  of 
Nature. 


CHAPTEK  VIII 
CACTUS  AND  GREASE -WOOD 

Nature  seems  a  benevolent  or  a  malevolent 
goddess  just  as  our  own  inadequate  vision 
happens  to  see  her.  If  we  have  eyes  only  for 
her  creative  beauties  we  think  her  all  goodness  ; 
if  we  see  only  her  power  of  destruction  we 
incline  to  think  she  is  all  evil.  "With  what 
infinite  care  and  patience,  worthy  only  of  a 
good  goddess,  does  she  build  up  the  child,  the 
animal,  the  bird,  the  tree,  the  flower !  How 
wonderfully  she  fits  each  for  its  purpose,  round- 
ing it  with  strength,  energy,  and  grace ;  and 
beautifying  it  with  a  prodigality  of  colors.  For 
twenty  years  she  works  night  and  day  to  bring 
the  child  to  perfection,  for  twenty  days  she  toils 
upon  the  burnished  wings  of  some  insect  buz- 
zing in  the  sunlight,  for  twenty  hours  she  paints 
the  gold  upon  the  petals  of  the  dandelion.  And 
then  what  ?  What  of  the  next  twenty  ?  Does 
she  leave  her  handiwork  to  take  care  of  itself 
until  an  unseen  dragon  called  Decay  comes 
128 


CACTUS  AND  GREASE -WOOD 


129 


along  to  destroy  it  ?  Not  at  all.  The  good 
goddess  has  a  hand  that  builds  up.  Yes  ;  and 
she  has  another  hand  that  takes  down.  The 
marvellous  skill  of  the  one  has  its  complement, 
its  counterpart,  in  the  other.  Block  by  block 
she  takes  apart  the  mosaic  with  just  as  much 
deftness  as  she  put  it  together. 

Those  first  twenty  years  of  our  life  we  were 
allowed  to  sap  blood  and  strength  from  our  sur- 
roundings ;  the  last  twenty  years  of  our  life  our 
surroundings  are  allowed  to  sap  blood  and 
strength  from  us.  It  is  Nature^s  plan  and  it  is 
carried  out  without  any  feeling.  With  the  same 
indifferent  spirit  that  she  planted  in  us  an  eye 
to  see  or  an  ear  to  hear,  she  afterward  plants  a 
microbe  to  breed  and  a  cancer  to  eat.  She  in 
herself  is  both  growth  and  decay.  The  virile 
and  healthy  things  of  the  earth  are  hers  ;  and 
so,  too,  are  disease,  dissolution,  and  death.  The 
flower  and  the  grass  spring  up,  they  fade,  they 
wither ;  and  Nature  neither  rejoices  in  the  life 
nor  sorrows  in  the  death.  She  is  neither  good 
nor  evil ;  she  is  only  a  great  law  of  change  that 
passeth  understanding.  The  gorgeous  pagean- 
try of  the  earth  with  all  its  beauty,  the  life 
thereon  with  its  hopes  and  fears  and  struggles, 
and  we  a  part  of  the  universal  whole,  are  brought 


Orowth  and 
decay. 


N'ature's 
plan. 


130 


THE  DESERT 


The  law  qf 
change. 


Nature  foil- 
ing her  ovm 
plans. 


Attack  and 
diiftnce. 


up  from  the  dust  to  dance  on  the  green  in  the 
sunlight  for  an  hour  ;  and  then  the  procession 
that  comes  after  us  turns  the  sod  and  we  creep 
back  to  Mother  Earth.  All,  all  to  dust  again  ; 
and  no  man  to  this  day  knoweth  the  why  thereof. 

One  is  continually  assailed  with  queries  of 
this  sort  whenever  and  wherever  he  begins  to 
study  Nature.  He  never  ceases  to  wonder  why 
she  should  take  such  pains  to  foil  her  own  plans 
and  bring  to  naught  her  own  creations.  Why 
did  she  give  the  flying  fish  such  a  willowy  tail 
and  such  long  fins,  why  did  she  labor  so  in- 
dustriously to  give  him  power  of  flight,  when  at 
the  same  time  she  was  giving  another  fish  in  the 
sea  greater  strength,  and  a  bird  in  the  air  great- 
er swiftness  wherewith  to  destroy  him  ?  Why 
should  she  make  the  tarantula  such  a  powerful 
engine  of  destruction  when  she  was  in  the  same 
hour  making  his  destroyer,  the  tarantula- wasp  ? 
And  always  here  in  the  desert  the  question 
comes  np  :  Why  should  Nature  give  these 
shrubs  and  plants  such  powers  of  endurance 
and  resistance,  and  then  surround  them  by  heat, 
drouth,  and  the  attacks  of  desert  animals  ?  It 
is  existence  for  a  day,  but  sooner  or  later  the 
growth  goes  down  and  is  beaten  into  dust. 

The  individual  dies.  Yes ;  but  not  the  Bpecies. 


CACTUS   AND  GREASE -WOOD 


131 


Perhaps  now  we  are  coming  closer  to  an  under- 
standing of  Nature's  method.  It  is  the  species 
that  she  designs  to  last,  for  a  period  at  least ; 
and  the  individual  is  of  no  great  importance, 
merely  a  sustaining  factor,  one  among  millions 
requiring  continual  renewal.  It  is  a  small  mat- 
ter whether  there  are  a  thousand  acres  of  grease- 
wood  more  or  less,  but  it  is  important  that  the 
family  be  not  extinguished.  It  grows  readily 
in  the  most  barren  spots,  is  very  abundant  and 
very  hardy,  and  hence  is  protected  only  by  an 
odor  and  a  varnish.  On  the  contrary  take  the 
bisnaga — a  rather  rare  cactus.  It  has  only  a 
thin,  short  tap-root,  therefore  it  has  an  enor- 
mous upper  reservoir  in  which  to  store  water, 
and  a  most  formidable  armor  of  fish-hook 
shaped  spines  that  no  beast  or  bird  can  pene- 
trate. Eemove  the  danger  which  threatens  the 
extinction  of  the  family  and  immediately  Nat- 
ure removes  the  defensive  armor.  On  the 
desert,  for  instance,  the  yucca  has  a  thorn  like 
a  point  of  steel.  Follow  it  from  the  desert  in- 
to the  high  tropical  table-lands  of  Mexico  where 
there  is  plenty  of  soil  and  moisture,  plenty  of 
chance  for  yuccas  to  thrive,  and  you  will  find 
it  turned  into  a  tree,  and  the  thorn  merely  a 
dull  blade-ending.     Follow  the  sahuaro  and  the 


Preserva- 
tion of  the 
species. 


Means  of 
preserva- 
tion. 


132 


THE  DESERT 


Maintain- 
ing the 
ttatus  quo. 


The  plant- 
struggle  for 
life. 


pitahaya  into  the  tropics  again,  and  with  their 
cousin,  the  organ  cactus,  you  find  them,  growing 
a  soft  thorn  that  would  hardly  penetrate  cloth- 
ing. Abundance  of  soil  and  rain,  abundance 
of  other  vegetation  for  browsing  animals,  and 
there  is  no  longer  need  of  protection.  With 
it  the  family  would  increase  too  rapidly. 

So  it  seems  that  Nature  desires  neither  in- 
crease nor  decrease  in  the  species.  She  wishes 
to  maintain  the  status  quo.  And  for  the  sake 
of  keeping  up  the  general  healthfulness  and 
virility  of  her  species  she  requires  that  there 
shall  be  change  in  the  component  parts.  Each 
must  suffer  not  a  *'sea  change,"  but  a  chemical 
change  ;  and  passing  into  liquids,  gases,  or  dusts, 
still  from  the  grave  help  on  the  universal  plan. 
So  it  is  that  though  Nature  dips  each  one  of  her 
desert  growths  into  the  Styx  to  make  them  in- 
vulnerable, yet  ever  she  holds  them  by  the  heel 
and  leaves  one  point  open  to  the  destroying 
arrow. 

Yet  it  is  remarkable  how  Nature  designs  and 
prepares  the  contest  —  the  struggle  for  life  — 
that  is  continually  going  on  in  her  world.  How 
wonderfully  she  arms  both  offence  and  defence  ! 
What  grounds  she  chooses  for  the  conflict  I 
What  stem  conditions  she  lays  down  I    Given  a 


CACTUS  AND  GREASE-WOOD 


133 


waste  of  sand  and  rock,  given  a  heat  so  intense 
that  under  a  summer  sun  the  stones  will  blister 
a  bare  foot  like  hot  iron,  given  perhaps  two  or 
three  inches  of  rain  in  a  twelvemonth ;  and 
what  vegetation  could  one  expect  to  find  grow- 
ing there  ?  Obviously,  none  at  all.  But 
no ;  Nature  insists  that  something  shall  fight 
heat  and  drouth  even  here,  and  so  she  designs 
strange  growths  that  live  a  starved  life,  and 
bring  forth  after  their  kind  with  much  labor. 
Hardiest  of  the  hardy  are  these  plants  and  just 
as  fierce  in  their  way  as  the  wild  cat.  ^  You  can- 
not touch  them  for  the  claw.  They  have  no 
idea  of  dying  without  a  struggle.  You  will 
find  every  one  of  them  admirably  fitted  to  en- 
dure. They  are  marvellous  engines  of  resist- 
ance. 

The  first  thing  that  all  these  plants  have  to 
fight  against  is  heat,  drouth,  and  the  evaporation 
of  what  little  moisture  they  may  have.  And 
here  Nature  has  equipped  them  with  ingenuity 
and  cunning.  Not  all  are  designed  alike,  to  be 
sure,  but  each  after  its  kind  is  good.  There 
are  the  cacti,  for  example,  that  will  grow  where 
everything  else  perishes.  Why  ?  For  one  rea- 
son because  they  have  geometrical  forms  that 
prevent  loss  from  evaporation  by  contracting  a 


Fighting 
heat  ana 
drouth. 


Prevention 
of  evapora- 
tion. 


134 


THE  DESERT 


Absence  of 
large  leaves. 


ExhattM  of 
moisture. 


minimum  surface  for  a  given  bulk  of  tissue.* 
There  is  no  waste,  no  unnecessary  exposure  of 
surface.  Then  there  are  some  members  of  the 
family  like  the  "  old  man  "  cactus,  that  have 
thick  coatings  of  spines  and  long  hairy  growths 
that  prevent  the  evaporation  of  moisture  by 
keeping  off  the  wind.  Then  again  the  cacti 
have  no  leaves  to  tempt  the  sun.  Many  of  the 
desert  growths  are  so  constructed.  Even  such 
a  tree  as  the  lluvia  d'oro  has  needles  rather  than 
leaves,  though  it  does  put  forth  a  row  of  tiny 
leaves  near  the  end  of  the  needle  ;  and  when  we 
come  to  examine  the  ordinary  trees  such  as  the 
mesquite,  the  depua,  the  palo  breya,  the  palo 
yerde,  and  all  the  acacia  family,  we  find  they 
have  very  narrow  leaves  that  have  a  fashion  of 
hanging  diagonally  to  the  sun  and  thus  avoid- 
ing the  direct  rays.  Nature  is  determined  that 
there  shall  be  no  unnecessary  exhaust  of  moist- 
ure through  foliage.  The  large-leafed  bush  or 
tree  does  not  exist.  The  best  shade  to  be  found 
on  the  desert  is  under  the  mesquite,  and  unless 
it  is  very  large,  the  sun  falls  through  it  easily 
enough. 

•  I  am  indebted  to  Professor  Forbes  of  the  University 
of  Arizona  for  this  and  several  other  statements  in  con- 
nection with  desert  vegetation. 


CACTUS  AND  GREASE-WOOD 


135 


As  an  extra  precaution  some  shrubs  are  given 
a  shellac-like  sap  or  gum  with  which  they  var- 
nish their  leaves  and  make  evaporation  almost 
impossible.  The  ordinary  grease-wood  is  an  ex- 
ample of  this  ;  and  perhaps  because  of  its  var- 
nish, it  is,  with  the  cacti,  the  hardiest  of  all  the 
desert  growths.  It  is  found  wherever  anything 
living  is  found,  and  flourishes  under  the  fiercest 
heat.  Its  leaves  always  look  bright  and  have  a 
sticky  feeling  about  them  as  though  recently 
shellacked. 

There  are  other  growths  that  seem  to  have  a 
fine  sense  of  discretion  in  the  matter  of  danger, 
for  they  let  fall  all  their  leaves  at  the  first  ap- 
proach of  drouth.  The  ocatilla,  or  "candle 
wood  "  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  puts  out  a  long 
row  of  bright  leaves  along  its  stems  after  a  rain, 
but  as  soon  as  drouth  comes  it  sheds  them  has- 
tily and  then  stands  for  months  in  the  sunlight 
— a  bundle  of  bare  sticks  soaked  with  a  resin 
that  will  burn  with  fire,  but  will  not  evaporate 
with  heat.  The  sangre  de  dragon  (sometimes 
called  sangre  en  grade)  does  the  same  thing. 

But  Nature's  most  common  device  for  the 
protection  and  preservation  of  her  desert  brood 
is  to  supply  them  with  wonderful  facilities  for 
finding  and  sapping  what  moisture  there  is,  and 


Oums  and 
varnishes 
of  bushes. 


The  oeatiOa. 


136 


THE  DESERT 


Tap  roots. 


Under- 
ground 
structure. 


Feeding  the 
top  growth. 


conserving  it  in  tanks  and  reservoirs.  The 
roots  of  the  grease- wood  and  the  mesqnite  are 
almost  as  powerful  as  the  arms  of  an  octopus, 
and  they  are  frequently  three  times  the  length 
of  the  bush  or  tree  they  support.  They  will 
bore  their  way  through  rotten  granite  to  find  a 
damp  ledge  almost  as  easily  as  a  diamond  drill ; 
and  they  will  pry  rocks  from  their  foundations 
as  readily  as  the  wistaria  wrenches  the  ornamen- 
tal wood-work  from  the  roof  of  a  porch.  They 
are  always  thirsty  and  they  are  always  running 
here  and  there  in  the  search  for  moisture.  A 
vertical  section  of  their  underground  structure 
revealed  by  the  cutting  away  of  a  river  bank  or 
wash  is  usually  a  great  surprise.  One  marvels 
at  the  great  network  of  roots  required  to  sup- 
port such  a  very  little  growth  above  ground. 

Yet  this  network  serves  a  double  purpose. 
It  not  only  finds  and  gathers  what  moisture 
there  is  but  stores  it  in  its  roots,  feeding  the 
top  growth  with  it  economically,  not  wastef ully. 
It  has  no  notion  of  sending  too  much  moisture 
up  to  the  sunlight  and  the  air.  Out  a  twig  and 
it  will  often  appear  very  dry ;  cut  a  root  and 
you  will  find  it  moist. 

The  storage  reservoir  below  ground  is  not  an 
unusual  method  of  supplying  water  to  the  plant. 


CACTUS  AND  GREASE-WOOD 


137 


Many  of  the  desert  growths  have  it.  Perhaps 
the  most  notable  example  of  it  is  the  wild  gourd. 
This  is  little  more  than  an  enormous  tap  root 
that  spreads  out  turnip-shaped  and  is  in  size 
often  as  large  around  as  a  man's  body.  It  holds 
water  in  its  pulpy  tissne  for  months  at  a  time,  and 
while  almost  everything  above  ground  is  parched 
and  dying  the  vines  and  leaves  of  the  gourd, 
fed  from  the  reservoir  below,  will  go  on  grow- 
ing and  the  flowers  continue  blooming  with  the 
most  unruffled  serenity.  In  the  Sonora  deserts 
there  is  a  cactus  or  a  bush  (its  name  I  have  never 
heard)  growing  from  a  root  that  looks  almost  like 
a  hornet's  nest.  This  root  is  half-wood,  half- 
vegetable,  and  is  again  a  water  reservoir  like  the 
root  of  the  gourd. 

But  there  are  reservoirs  above  ground  quite 
as  interesting  as  those  below.  The  tall  fluted 
column  of  the  sahuaro,  sometimes  fifty  feet 
high,  is  little  more  than  an  upright  cistern  for 
holding  moisture.  Its  support  within  is  a  se- 
ries of  sticks  arranged  in  cylindrical  form  and 
held  together  by  some  fibre,  some  tissue,  and  a 
great  deal  of  saturated  pulp.  Drive  a  stick 
into  it  after  a  rain  and  it  will  run  sap  almost 
like  the  maguey  from  which  the  Indians  distill 
mescal.     All  the  cacti  conserve  water  in  their 


storage 
reservoirs 
below 
ground. 


Reservoirs 

above 

ground. 


138 


THE  DESERT 


Thickened 
bark9. 


Oathering 
moisture. 


Attacks 
upon  desert 
plants. 


lobes  or  columns  or  at  the  base  near  the  ground. 
So  too  the  Spanish  bayonets,  the  yuccas,  the 
prickly  pears  and  the  chollas. 

Many  of  the  shrubs  and  trees  like  the  sangre 
de  dragon  and  the  torote  have  enlarged  or 
thickened  barks  to  hold  and  supply  water.  If 
you  cut  them  the  sap  runs  readily.  When  it 
congeals  it  forms  a  gum  which  heals  over  the 
wound  and  once  more  prevents  evaporation. 
Existence  for  the  plants  would  be  impossible 
without  such  inventions.  Plant  life  of  every 
kind  requires  some  moisture  all  the  time.  It 
is  an  error  to  suppose  because  they  grow  in  the 
so-called  '^  rainless  desert "  that  therefore  they 
exist  without  water.  They  gather  and  hus- 
band it  during  wet  periods  for  use  during  dry 
periods,  and  in  doing  so  they  seem  to  display 
almost  as  much  intelligence  as  a  squirrel  or  an  ant 
does  in  storing  food  for  winter  consumption. 

Is  Nature's  task  completed  then  when  she 
has  provided  the  plants  with  reservoirs  of  water 
and  tap  roots  to  pump  for  them  ?  By  no  means. 
How  long  would  a  tank  of  moisture  exist  in  the 
desert  if  unprotected  from  the  desert  animals  ? 
The  mule-deer  lives  here,  and  he  can  go  for 
weeks  without  water,  but  he  will  take  it  every 
day  if  he  can  get  it.     And  the  coyote  can  run 


CACTUS  AND  GREASE-WOOD 


139 


the  hills  indefinitely  with  little  or  no  moisture ; 
but  he  will  eat  a  water  melon,  rind  and  all,  and 
with  great  relish,  when  the  opportunity  offers. 
The  sahuaro,  the  bisnaga,  the  choUa,  and  the 
pan-cake  lobed  prickly  pear  would  have  a  short 
life  and  not  a  merry  one  if  they  were  left  to  the 
mercy  of  the  desert  prowler.  As  it  is  they  are 
sometimes  sadly  worried  about  their  roots  by 
rabbits  and  in  their  lobes  by  the  deer.  It 
seems  almost  incredible  but  is  not  the  less  a 
fact,  that  deer  and  desert  cattle  will  eat  the 
cholla — fruit,  stem,  and  trunk — though  it 
bristles  with  spines  that  will  draw  blood  from 
the  human  hand  at  the  slightest  touch. 

Nature  knows  very  well  that  the  attack  will 
come  and  so  she  provides  her  plants  with  various 
different  defenses.  The  most  common  weapon 
which  she  gives  them  is  the  spine  or  thorn. 
Almost  everything  that  grows  has  it  and  its 
different  forms  are  many.  They  are  all  of  them 
sharp  as  a  needle  and  some  of  them  have  saw- 
edges  that  rip  anything  with  which  they  come 
in  contact.  The  grasses,  and  those  plants  akin 
to  them  like  the  yucca  and  the  maguey,  are 
often  both  saw-edged  and  spine-pointed.  All 
the  cacti  have  thorns,  some  straight,  some 
barbed  like  a  harpoon,  some  curved  like  a  hook. 


Browsing 
animals. 


Weapont  of 
defense. 


140 


THE  DESERT 


The  spine 
and  thorn. 


The  erttci- 
Jixion  thorn. 


There  are  chollas  that  have  a  sheath  covering 
the  thorn — a  scabbard  to  the  sword — and  when 
anything  pushes  against  it  the  sheath  is  left 
sticking  in  the  wound.  The  different  forms  of 
the  bisnaga  are  little  more  than  vegetable  por- 
cupines. They  bristle  with  quills  or  have  hook- 
shaped  thorns  that  catch  and  hold  the  intruder. 
The  sahuaro  has  not  so  many  spines,  but  they 
are  so  arranged  that  you  can  hardly  strike  the 
cylinder  without  striking  the  thorns. 

The  cacti  are  defended  better  than  the  other 
growths  because  they  have  more  to  lose,  and  are 
consequently  more  subject  to  attack.  And  yet 
there  is  one  notable  exception.  The  crucifix- 
ion thorn  is  a  bush  or  tree  somewhat  like  the 
palo  verde,  except  that  it  has  no  leaf.  It  is  a 
thorn  and  little  else.  Each  small  twig  runs 
out  and  ends  in  a  sharp  spike  of  which  the 
branch  is  but  the  supporting  shaft.  It  bears 
in  August  a  small  yellow  flower  but  this  grows 
out  of  the  side  of  the  spike.  In  fact  the  whole 
shrub  seems  created  for  no  other  purpose  than 
the  glorification  of  the  thorn  as  a  thorn.* 

*  It  is  said  to  be  very  scarce  but  I  have  found  it  grow- 
ing along  the  Castle  Creek  region  of  Arizona,  also  at 
Kingman,  Peach  Springs,  and  further  north.  A  stunted 
variety  grows  on  the  Mojave  but  it  is  not  frequently  seen 
on  the  Colorado. 


CACTUS  AND  GREASE- WOOD 


141 


Tree,  bush,  plant  and  grass — ^great  and  small 
alike — each  has  its  sting  for  the  intruder.  You 
can  hardly  stoop  to  pick  a  desert  flower  or  pull  a 
bunch  of  small  grass  without  being  aware  of  a 
prickle  on  your  hand.  Nature  seems  to  have 
provided  a  whole  arsenal  of  defensive  weapons 
for  these  poor  starved  plants  of  the  desert. 
Not  any  of  the  lovely  growths  of  the  earth, 
like  the  lilies  and  the  daffodils,  are  so  well  de- 
fended. And  she  has  given  them  not  only 
armor  but  a  spirit  of  tenacity  and  stubbornness 
wherewith  to  carry  on  the  struggle.  Cut  out 
the  purslain  and  the  iron  weed  from  the  garden 
walk,  and  it  springs  up  again  and  again,  con- 
tending for  life.  Put  heat,  drouth,  and  ani- 
mal attack  against  the  desert  shrubs  and  they 
fight  back  like  the  higher  forms  of  organic  life. 
How  typical  they  are  of  everything  in  and  about 
the  desert.  There  is  but  one  word  to  describe 
it  and  that  word — fierce — I  shall  have  worn 
threadbare  before  I  have  finished  these  chapters. 

We  have  not  yet  done  with  enumerating  the 
defenses  of  these  plants.  The  bushes  like  the 
grease- wood  and  the  sage  have  not  the  bulk  of 
body  to  grow  the  thorn.  They  are  too  slight, 
too  rambling  in  make-up.  Besides  their  reser- 
voirs are  protected  by  being  in  their  roots  under 


The  sting  of 
flowers. 


Fierceness 
of  the  plant. 


142 


tHE  DESERT 


Odors  and 
juices. 


Saps  astrin- 
gent and 
cathartic. 


the  ground.  But  Nature  has  not  left  their 
tops  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  the  deer.  Take 
the  leaf  of  the  sage  and  crush  it  in  your  hand. 
The  odor  is  anything  but  pleasant.  No  animal 
except  the  jack-rabbit,  no  bird  except  the  sage 
hen  will  eat  it ;  and  no  human  being  will  eat 
either  the  rabbit  or  the  hen,  if  he  can  get  any- 
thing else,  because  of  the  rank  sage  flavor. 
Rub  the  grease-wood  in  your  hand  and  it  feels 
harsh  and  brittle.  The  resinous  Tarnish  of  the 
leaves  gives  it  a  sticky  feeling  and  a  disagreeable 
odor  again.  Nothing  on  the  desert  will  touch 
it.  Cut  or  break  a  twig  of  the  sangre  de  dragon 
and  a  red  sap  like  blood  runs  out.  Touch  it  to 
the  tongue  and  it  proves  the  most  powerful  of 
astringents.  The  Indians  use  it  to  cauterize 
bullet  wounds.  Again  no  animal  will  touch  it. 
Half  the  plants  on  the  desert  put  forth  their 
leaves  with  impunity*  They  are  not  disturbed 
by  either  browsers  or  grazers.  Some  of  them 
are  poisonous,  many  of  them  are  cathartic  jor 
emetiC;  nearly  all  of  them  are  disagreeable  to 
the  taste. 

So  it  seems  with  spines,  thorns,  barbs,  resins, 
varnishes  and  odorous  smells  Nature  has  armed 
her  desert  own  very  effectually.  And  her  ex- 
penditure of  energy  may  seem  singularly  dis- 


CACTUS  AND  GREASE- WOOD 


143 


proportionate  to  the  result  attained.  The  little 
vegetation  that  grows  in  the  waste  may  not 
seem  worth  while,  may  seem  insignificant 
compared  with  the  great  care  bestowed  upon  it. 
But  Nature  does  not  think  so.  To  her  the  cac- 
tus of  the  desert  is  just  as  important  in  its 
place  as  the  arrowy  pine  on  the  mountain. 
She  means  that  something  shall  grow  and  bear 
fruit  after  its  kind  even  on  the  gravel  beds  of 
the  Colorado ;  she  means  that  the  desert  shall 
have  its  covering,  scanty  though  it  be,  just  the 
same  as  the  well- watered  lands  of  the  tropics. 

But  are  they  useful,  these  desert  growths  ? 
Certainly  they  are ;  just  as  useful  as  the  pine 
tree  or  the  potato  plant.  To  be  sure,  man 
cannot  saw  them  into  boards  or  cook  them  in  a 
pot;  but  then  Nature  has  other  animals  be- 
side man  to  look  after,  other  uses  for  her  pro- 
ducts than  supporting  human  life.  She  toils 
and  spins  for  all  alike  and  man  is  not  her  spe- 
cial care.  The  desert  vegetation  answers  her 
purposes  and  who  shall  say  her  purposes  have 
ever  been  other  than  wise  ? 

Are  they  beautiful  these  plants  and  shrubs 
of  the  desert  ?  Now  just  what  do  you  mean 
by  that  word  '*  beautiful "  ?  Do  you  mean 
something  of  regular  form,  something  smooth 


The  expend- 
iture 0/ 
energy. 


The  desert 
covering. 


Use  of 
desert 
plants. 


144 


THE  DESERT 


Their 
beauty. 


Beauty  in 
character. 


Formtof 
the  yucca 
and 
maguey. 


and  pretty  ?  Are  you  dragging  into  nature 
some  remembrances  of  classic  art;  and  are 
you  looking  for  the  Dionysius  face,  the 
Doryphorus  form,  among  these  trees  and 
bushes  ?  If  so  the  desert  will  not  furnish  you 
too  much  of  beauty.  But  if  you  mean  some- 
thing that  has  a  distinct  character,  something 
appropriate  to  its  setting,  something  admirably 
fitted  to  a  designed  end  (as  in  art  the  peasants 
of  Millet  or  the  burghers  of  Eembrandt  and 
Rodin),  then  the  desert  will  show  forth  much 
that  people  nowadays  are  beginning  to  think 
beautiful.  Mind  you,  perfect  form  and  perfect 
color  are  not  to  be  despised  ;  neither  shall  you 
despise  perfect  fitness  and  perfect  character. 
The  desert  plants,  every  one  of  them,  have  very 
positive  characters ;  and  I  am  not  certain  but 
that  many  of  them  are  interesting  and  beauti- 
ful even  in  form  and  color. 

No  doubt  it  is  an  acquired  taste  that  leads 
one  to  admire  grease- wood  and  cactus  ;  but  can 
anyone  be  blind  to  the  graceful  form  of  the 
maguey,  or  better  still,  the  yucca  with  its  tall 
stalk  rising  like  a  shaft  from  a  bowl  and  capped 
at  the  top  by  nodding  creamy  flowers  ?  On  the 
mountains  and  the  mesas  the  sahuaro  is  so  com- 
mon that  perhaps  we  overlook  its  beauty  of 


CACTUS  AND  GREASE- WOOD 


145 


form  ;  yet  its  lines  are  as  sinuous  as  those  of  a 
Moslem  minaret,  its  flu  tings  as  perfect  as  those 
of  a  Doric  column.  Often  and  often  you  see  it 
standing  on  a  ledge  of  some  rocky  peak,  like 
the  lone  shaft  of  a  ruined  temple  on  a  Greek 
headland.  And,  by  way  of  contrast  what  could 
be  more  lovely  than  the  waving  lightness,  the 
drooping  gracefulness  of  the  lluvia  d'oro.  The 
swaying  tossing  lluvia  d'oro,  well  called  the 
'*  shower  of  gold  "  I  It  is  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful of  the  desert  trees  with  its  white  skin  like 
the  northern  birch,  its  long  needles  like  the 
pine,  and  the  downward  sweep  of  its  branches 
like  the  willow.  A  strange  wild  tree  that  seems 
to  shun  all  society,  preferring  to  dwell  like  a 
hermit  among  the  rocks.  It  roots  itself  in  the 
fissures  of  broken  granite  and  it  seems  at  its 
happiest  when  it  can  let  down  its  shower  of  gold 
over  some  precipice. 

There  are  other  tree  forms,  like  the  palo  verde 
and  the  mesquite,  that  are  not  wanting  in  a 
native  grace  ;  and  yet  it  may  as  well  be  admitted 
that  most  of  the  trees  and  bushes  are  lacking 
in  height,  mass,  and  majesty.  It  is  no  place 
for  large  growths  that  reach  up  to  the  sun.  The 
heat  and  drouth  are  too  great  and  tend  to  make 
form  angular  and  grotesque.     But  these  very 


The  lluvia 
d'oro. 


Orotesqu* 
forms. 


146 


THE  DESERT 


Abnormal 
colors. 


JBloasoms 
andjlowert. 


conditions  that  dwarf  form  perhaps  enhance 
color  by  distorting  it  in  an  analogous  manner. 
When  plants  are  starved  for  water  and  grow  in 
thin  poor  soil  they  often  put  on  colors  that  are 
abnormal,  even  unhealthy.  Because  of  starva- 
tion perhaps  the  little  green  of  the  desert  is  a 
sallow  green  ;  and  for  the  same  reason  the  lobes 
of  the  prickly  pear  are  pale-green,  dull  yellow, 
sad  pink  or  livid  mauve.  The  prickly  pear 
seems  to  take  all  colors  dependent  upon  the 
poverty,  or  the  mineral  character,  of  the  ground 
where  it  grows.  In  that  respect  perhaps  it  is 
influenced  in  the  same  way  as  the  parti-colored 
hydrangea  of  the  eastern  dooryard. 

All  the  cacti  are  brilliant  in  the  flowers  they 
bear.  The  top  of  the  bisnaga  in  summer  is  at 
first  a  mass  of  yellow,  then  bright  orange,  finally 
dark  red.  The  sahuaro  bears  a  purple  flower, 
and  the  cholla,  the  ocatilla,  the  pitahaya  come 
along  with  pink  or  gold  or  red  or  blue  flowers. 
And  again  all  the  bushes  and  trees  in  summer 
put  forth  showers  of  color — graceful  masses  of 
petaled  cups  that  look  more  like  flowers  grown 
in  a  meadow  than  blossoms  grown  on  a  tree. 
In  June  the  palo  verde  is  a  great  ball  of  yellow- 
gold,  but  there  is  a  variety  of  it  with  a  blue- 
green  bark  that  grows  a  blossom  almost  like  an 


CACTUS   AND   GKEASE-WOOD 


147 


eastern  violet.  And  down  in  Sonora  one  is  daz- 
zled by  the  splendor  of  the  guyacan  (or  gual- 
lacan)  which  throws  out  blossoms  half-blue  and 
half -red.  All  the  commoner  growths  like  the 
sage,  the  mesquite,  the  palo  fierro,  and  the  palo 
bianco,  are  blossom  bearers.  In  fact  everything 
that  grows  at  all  in  the  desert  puts  forth  in  sea- 
son some  bright  little  flag  of  color.  In  the 
mass  they  make  little  show,  but  examined  in 
the  part  they  are  interesting  because  of  their 
nurture,  their  isolation,  and  their  peculiarity 
of  form  and  color.  The  conditions  of  life  have 
perhaps  contorted  them,  have  paled  or  grayed 
or  flushed  or  made  morbid  their  coloring ;  but 
they  are  all  of  them  beautiful.  Beautiful  color 
is  usually  unhealthy  color  as  we  have  already 
suggested. 

Aside  from  the  blossoms  upon  bush  and  tree 
there  are  few  bright  petals  shining  in  the  des- 
ert. It  is  no  place  for  flowers.  They  are  too 
delicate  and  are  usually  wanting  in  tap  root 
and  armor.  If  they  spring  up  they  are  soon 
cut  down  by  drouth  or  destroyed  by  animals. 
Many  tales  are  told  of  the  flowers  that  grow  on 
the  waste  after  the  rains,  but  I  have  not  seen 
them  though  I  have  seen  the  rains.  There  are 
no  lupins,  phacelias,  pentstemons,  poppies,  or 


Many 
varieties. 


Wild 
Jlowers, 


148 


THE  DESERT 


SaUrbush. 


2%e  grasses. 


The  lichens. 


yellow  violets.  Occasionally  one  sees  the  wild 
verbena  or  patches  of  the  evening  primrose,  or 
up  in  the  swales  the  little  baby  blue-eye  grow- 
ing all  alone,  or  perhaps  the  yellow  mimulus  ; 
but  all  told  they  do  not  make  up  a  very  strong 
contingent.  The  salt  bush  that  looks  the  color 
of  Scotch  heather,  out-bulks  them  all ;  and  yet 
is  not  conspicuously  apparent.  Higher  up  in  the 
hills  and  along  the  mesas  one  often  meets  with 
many  strange  flowers,  some  fiery  red  and  some 
with  spines  like  the  Canadian  thistle ;  but  not 
down  in  the  hot  valleys  of  the  desert. 

Nor  are  there  many  grasses  of  consequence 
aside  from  a  small  curled  grass  and  the  heavy 
sacaton  that  grow  in  bunches  upon  isolated 
portions  of  the  desert.  By  *'  isolated  "  I  mean 
that  for  some  unknown  reason  there  are  tracts 
on  the  desert  seemingly  sacred  to  certain  plants, 
some  to  cholla,  some  to  yuccas,  some  to  grease- 
wood,  some  to  sahuaros,  some  to  sacaton  grass. 
It  seems  to  be  a  desert  oddity  that  the  vegeta- 
tion does  not  mix  or  mingle  to  any  great  ex- 
tent. There  are  seldom  more  than  four  or  five 
kinds  of  growth  to  be  found  in  one  tract.  It 
is  even  noticeable  in  the  lichens.  One  moun- 
tain range  will  have  all  gray  lichens  on  its 
northern  walls,  another  range  will   have  all 


CACTUS   AND  GREASE-WOOD 


149 


orange  lichens,  and  still  another  will  be  mottled 
by  patches  of  coal-black  lichens. 

Strange  growths  of  a  strange  land !  Heat, 
drouth,  and  starvation  gnawing  at  their  vitals 
month  in  and  month  out ;  and  yet  how  deter- 
mined to  live,  how  determined  to  fulfill  their 
destiny  !  They  keep  fighting  off  the  elements, 
the  animals,  the  birds.  Never  by  day  or  by 
night  do  they  loose  the  armor  or  drop  the  spear 
point.  And  yet  with  all  the  struggle  they  se- 
renely blossom  in  season,  perpetuate  their  kinds, 
and  hand  down  the  struggle  to  the  newer  gen- 
eration with  no  jot  of  vigor  abated,  no  tittle 
of  hope  dissipated.  Strange  growths  indeed ! 
And  yet  strange,  perhaps,  only  to  us  who  have 
never  known  their  untrumpeted  history. 


The 

continuous 

atrugyle. 


Meeting 
desert  re- 
quirements. 


The 

peculiar 
desert 
eharaeter. 


CHAPTER  IX 
DESERT  ANIMALS 

The  life  of  the  desert  lives  only  by  virtue  of 
adapting  itself  to  the  conditions  of  the  desert. 
Nature  does  not  bend  the  elements  to  favor  the 
plants  and  the  animals ;  she  makes  the  plants 
and  the  animals  do  the  bending.  The  torote 
and  the  evening  primrose  must  get  used  to  heat, 
drouth,  and  a  rocky  bed ;  the  coyote  must  learn 
to  go  without  food  and  water  for  long  periods. 
Even  man,  whose  magnificent  complacency  leads 
him  to  think  himself  one  of  Nature's  favorites, 
fares  no  better  than  a  wild  cat  or  an  angle  of 
cholla.  He  must  endure  the  same  heat,  thirst, 
and  hunger  or  perish.  There  is  no  other  alter- 
native. 

And  so  it  happens  that  those  things  that  can 
live  in  the  desert  become  stamped  after  a  time 
with  a  peculiar  desert  character.  The  struggle 
seems  to  develop  in  them  special  characteristics 
and  make  them,  not  different  from  their  kind  ; 
but  more  positive,  more  insistent  The  yucca 
150 


DESERT  ANIMALS 


161 


of  the  Mojave  is  the  yucca  of  New  Mexico  and 
Old  Mexico  but  hardier ;  the  wild  cat  of  the 
Colorado  is  the  wild  cat  of  Virginia  but  swifter, 
more  ferocious ;  the  Yuma  Indian  is  like  the 
Zuni  or  the  Navajo  but  lanker,  more  sinewy, 
more  enduring.  Father  Garces,  who  passed 
through  here  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  years 
ago,  records  in  his  Memoirs  more  than  once  the 
wonderful  endurance  of  the  desert  Indians. 
"The  Jamajabs  (a  branch  of  the  Yumas)  en- 
dure hunger  and  thirst  for  four  days,''  he  writes 
in  one  place.  The  tale  is  told  that  the  Indians 
in  the  Coahuila  Valley  at  the  present  day  can 
do  substantially  the  same  thing.  And,  too,  it 
is  said  that  the  Yumas  have  traveled  from  the 
Colorado  to  the  Pacific,  across  the  desert  on 
foot,  without  any  sustenance  whatever.  No 
one,  not  to  the  desert  born,  could  do  such  a 
thing.  Years  of  training  in  starvation,  thirst 
and  exposure  have  produced  a  man  almost  as 
hardy  as  the  cactus,  and  just  as  distinctly  a 
type  of  the  desert  as  the  coyote. 

But  the  Indian  and  the  plant  must  have  some 
water.  They  cannot  go  without  it  indefinitely. 
And  just  there  the  desert  animals  seem  to  fit 
their  environment  a  little  snugger  than  either 
plant  or  human.     For,  strange  as  it  may  ap- 


Desert        i 
Indians, 


The 
animali. 


152 


THE  DESEBT 


Endurance 
of  the 
jack-rabbit. 


pear,  many  of  them  get  no  water  at  all.  There 
are  sections  of  the  desert,  fifty  or  more  miles 
square,  where  there  is  not  a  trace  of  water  in 
river,  creek,  arroyo  or  pocket,  where  there  is 
never  a  drop  of  dew  falling ;  and  where  the  two 
or  three  showers  of  rain  each  year  sink  into  the 
sand  and  are  lost  in  half  an  hour  after  they 
have  fallen.  Yet  that  fifty-mile  tract  of  sand 
and  rock  supports  its  animal,  reptile  and  insect 
life  just  the  same  as  a  similar  tract  in  Illinois 
or  Florida.  How  the  animals  endure,  how — 
even  on  the  theory  of  getting  used  to  it — the 
jack-rabbit,  the  ground  squirrel,  the  rat,  and 
the  gopher  can  live  for  months  without  even 
the  moisture  from  green  vegetation,  is  one  of 
the  mysteries.  A  mirror  held  to  the  nose  of 
a  desert  rabbit  will  show  a  moist  breath-mark 
on  the  glass.  The  moisture  came  out  of  the 
rabbit,  is  coming  out  of  him  every  few  sec- 
onds of  the  day ;  and  there  is  not  a  drop  of 
moisture  going  into  him.  Evidently  the  an- 
cient axiom  :  ''Out  of  nothing,  nothing  comes" 
is  all  wrong. 

It  is  said  in  answer  that  the  jack-rabbit  gets 
moisture  from  roots,  cactus-lobes  and  the  like. 
And  the  reply  is  that  you  find  him  where  there 
are  no  roots  but  grease- wood  and  no  cactus  at 


DESEUT  ANIMALS 


ins 


all.  Besides  there  is  no  evidence  from  an  ex- 
amination of  his  stomach  that  he  ever  eats  any- 
thing bnt  dried  grass,  bark,  and  sage  leaves. 
But  if  the  matter  is  a  trifle  doubtful  about  the 
rabbit  on  account  of  his  traveling  capacities, 
there  is  no  doubt  whatever  about  the  ground 
squirrels,  the  rock  squirrels,  and  the  prairie 
dogs.  None  of  them  ever  gets  more  than  a  hun- 
dred yards  from  his  hole  in  his  life,  except  pos- 
sibly when  migrating.  And  the  circuit  about 
each  hole  is  usually  bare  of  everything  except 
dried  grass.  There  is  no  moisture  to  be  had. 
The  prairie  dog  is  not  found  on  the  desert,  but 
in  "Wyoming  and  Montana  there  are  villages  of 
them  on  the  grass  prairies,  with  no  water,  root, 
lobe,  or  leaf  within  miles  of  them.  The  old 
theory  of  the  prairie  dog  digging  his  hole  down 
to  water  has  no  basis  in  fact.  Patience,  a  strong 
arm  and  a  spade  will  get  to  the  bottom  of  his 
burrow  in  half  an  hour. 

All  the  desert  animals  know  the  meaning  of 
a  water  famine,  and  even  those  that  are  pro- 
nounced water  drinkers  know  how  to  get  on 
with  the  minimum  supply.  The  mule-deer 
whose  cousin  in  the  Adirondacks  goes  down  to 
water  every  night,  lives  in  the  desert  mountains, 
month  in  and  month  out  with  nothing  more 


Rock 
squirrels. 


Prairie 
dogs  and 
water. 


Water 
famine. 


154 


THE  DESERT 


Mule-deer 
browsing. 


Coyotes  and 
wild  cats 
living  with- 
out water. 


watery  to  quench  thirst  than  a  lobe  of  the 
prickly  pear  or  a  joint  of  cholla.  But  he  is  nat- 
urally fond  of  green  vegetation,  and  in  the  early 
morning  he  usually  leaves  the  valley  and  climbs 
the  mountains  where  with  goats  and  mountain 
sheep  he  browses  on  the  twigs  of  shrub  and  tree. 
The  coyote  likes  water,  too,  but  he  puts  up  with 
sucking  a  nest  of  quail  eggs,  eating  some  mes- 
quite  beans,  or  at  best  absorbing  the  blood  from 
some  rabbit.  The  wild  cat  will  go  for  weeks 
without  more  moisture  than  the  blood  of  birds 
or  lizards,  and  then  perhaps,  after  long  thirst, 
he  will  come  to  a  water  pocket  in  the  rocks  to 
lap  only  a  handful,  doing  it  with  an  angry 
snarling  snap  as  though  he  disliked  it  and  was 
drinking  under  compulsion.  The  gray  wolf 
is  too  much  of  a  traveller  to  depend  upon  any 
one  locality.  He  will  run  fifty  miles  in  a  night 
and  be  back  before  morning.  "Whether  he 
gets  water  or  not  is  not  possible  to  ascertain. 
The  badger,  the  coon,  and  the  bear  are  very 
seldom  seen  in  the  more  arid  regions.  They 
are  not  strictly  speaking  desert  animals  because 
unfitted  to  endure  desert  hardships.  They  are 
naturally  great  eaters  and  sleepers,  loving  cool 
weather  and  their  own  fatness ;  and  to  that  the 
desert  is  sharply  opposed.     There  is  nothing 


DESERT   ANIMALS 


155 


fat  in  the  land  of  sand  and  cactus.  Animal 
life  is  lean  and  gaunt ;  if  it  sleeps  at  all  it  is  with 
one  eye  open  ;  and  as  for  heat  it  cares  very  lit- 
tle about  it.  For  the  first  law  of  the  desert  to 
which  animal  life  of  every  kind  pays  allegiance 
is  the  law  of  endurance  and  abstinence.  After 
that  requirement  is  fulfilled  special  needs  pro- 
duce the  peculiar  qualities  and  habits  of  the  in- 
dividual. 

Yet  there  is  one  quality  more  general  than 
special  since  almost  everything  possesses  it,  and 
that  is  ferocity — fierceness.  The  strife  is  des- 
perate ;  the  supply  of  food  and  moisture  is 
small,  the  animal  is  very  hungry  and  thirsty. 
What  wonder  then  that  there  is  the  determi- 
nation of  the  starving  in  all  desert  life  !  Every- 
thing pursues  or  is  pursued.  Every  muscle  is 
strung  to  the  highest  tension.  The  bounding 
deer  must  get  away;  the  swift-following  wolf 
must  not  let  him.  The  gray  lizard  dashes  for 
a  ledge  of  rock  like  a  flash  of  light ;  but  the 
bayonet  bill  of  the  road-runner  must  catch 
him  before  he  gets  there.  Neither  can  afford 
to  miss  his  mark.  And  that  is  perhaps  the 
reason  why  there  is  so  much  development  in 
special  directions,  so  much  fitness  for  a  par- 
ticular purpose,  so  much  equipment  for  the 


Lean, 
gaunt  li/e. 


Fierceness 
of  the 
animals. 


156 


THE  DESERT 


doing  or  the  avoiding  of  death.  Because  the 
wild  cat  cannot  afford  to  miss  his  quarry,  there- 
fore is  he  made  a  something  that  seldom  does 
miss. 

The  description  of  the  lion  as  "  a  jaw  on  four 
paws  "  will  fit  the  wild  cat  very  well — only  he 
is  a  jaw  on  two  paws.  The  hind  legs  are  in- 
significant compared  with  the  front  ones,  and 
the  body  back  of  the  shoulders  is  lean,  lank, 
slight,  but  withal  muscular  and  sinewy.  The 
head  is  bushy,  heavy,  and  square,  the  neck  and 
shoulders  are  massive,  the  forelegs  and  paws  so 
large  that  they  look  to  belong  to  some  other  an- 
imal. The  ears  are  small  yet  sensitive  enough 
to  catch  the  least  noise,  the  nose  is  acute,  the 
eyes  are  like  great  mirrors,  the  teeth  like  points 
of  steel.  In  fact  the  whole  animal  is  little  more 
than  a  machine  for  dragging  down  and  devour- 
ing prey.  That  and  the  protection  of  his  breed 
are  his  only  missions  on  earth.  He  is  the  same 
creeping,  snarling  beast  that  one  finds  in  the 
mountains  of  California,  but  the  desert  animal 
is  larger  and  stronger.  He  sneaks  upon  a  band 
of  quail  or  a  rabbit  with  greater  caution,  and 
when  he  springs  and  strikes  it  is  with  greater 
certainty.  The  enormous  paws  pin  the  game  to 
the  earth,  and  the  sharp  teeth  cut  through  like 


DESERT  ANIMALS 


167 


knives.  It  is  not  more  than  once  in  two  or 
three  days  that  a  meal  comes  within  reach  and 
he  has  no  notion  of  allowing  it  to  get  away. 

The  panther,  or  as  he  is  more  commonly 
called,  the  mountain  lion,  is  no  such  square- 
built  mass  of  muscle,  no  such  bundle  of  energy 
as  the  wild  cat,  though  much  longer  and  larger. 
The  figure  is  wiry  and  serpentine,  and  has  all  the 
action  and  grace  of  the  tiger.  It  is  pre-eminently 
a  figure  for  crouching,  sneaking,  springing,  and 
dragging  down.  His  struggle-for-life  is  perhaps 
not  so  desperate  as  that  of  the  cat  because  he  lives 
high  up  in  the  desert  mountains  where  game  is 
more  plentiful ;  but  he  is  a  very  good  struggler 
for  all  that.  Occasionally  one  hears  his  cry  in 
the  night  (a  cry  that  stops  the  yelp  of  the  coyote 
very  quickly  and  sets  the  ears  of  the  jack-rabbit 
a-trembling)  but  he  is  seldom  seen  unless  sought 
for.  Even  then  the  seeker  does  not  usually 
care  to  look  for  him,  or  at  him  too  long.  He 
has  the  tiger  eye,  and  his  jaw  and  claw  are  too 
powerful  to  be  trifled  with.  He  will  not  attack 
one  unless  at  bay  or  wounded  ;  but  as  a  moun- 
tain prowler  he  is  the  terror  of  the  young  deer, 
the  mountain  sheep,  and  the  rabbit  family. 

One  sees  the  gray  wolf  but  little  oftener  than 
the  mountain  lion.      Sometimes  in  the  very 


The  moun- 
tain Hon. 


Habits  of 
the  moun- 
tain lion. 


The  gray 
wolf. 


168 


THE  DESERT 


early  morning  you  may  catch  a  glimpse  of  him 
sneaking  up  a  mountain  canyon,  but  he  usually 
keeps  out  of  sight.  His  size  is  great  for  a  wolf 
— sometimes  over  six  feet  from  nose  to  tail  tip 
— ^but  it  lies  mostly  in  length  and  bulk.  He  does 
not  stand  high  on  his  feet  and  yet  is  a  swift  and 
long-winded  runner.  In  this  and  in  his  strength 
of  jaw  lies  his  special  equipment.  He  is  not 
very  cunning  but  he  takes  up  and  follows  a 
trail,  and  runs  the  game  to  earth  with  consider- 
able perseverance.  I  have  never  seen  anything 
but  his  footprints  on  the  desert.  Usually  he 
keeps  well  up  in  the  mountains  and  comes  down 
on  the  plains  only  at  night.  He  prefers  prairie 
or  table-land  country,  with  adjacent  stock 
ranges,  to  the  desert,  because  there  the  hunting 
is  not  difficult.  Sheep,  calves,  and  pigs  he  will 
eat  with  some  relish,  but  his  favorite  game  is  the 
young  colt.  He  runs  all  his  game  and  catches 
it  as  it  runs  like  the  true  wolf  that  he  is.  Some- 
times he  hunts  in  packs  of  half  a  dozen,  but  if 
there  is  no  companionship  he  does  not  hesitate 
to  hunt  alone. 

The  prairie  wolf  or  coyote  is  not  at  all  like 
the  gray  wolf.  He  seldom  runs  after  things, 
though  he  does  a  good  deal  of  running  away 
from  them.     And  he  is  a  fairly  good  runner  too. 


DESERT  ANIMALS 


169 


But  lie  does  not  win  his  living  by  his  courage. 
His  special  gift  is  not  the  muscular  energy  that 
crushes  at  a  blow  ;  nor  the  great  strength  that 
follows  and  tires  and  finally  drags  down.  Nat- 
ure designed  him  with  the  wolf  form  and  in- 
stinct, but  gave  him  something  of  the  clever- 
ness of  the  fox.  It  is  by  cunning  and  an 
obliging  stomach  that  the  coyote  is  enabled  to 
eke  out  a  living.  He  is  cunning  enough  to 
know,  for  instance,  that  you  cannot  see  him  on 
a  desert  background  as  long  as  he  does  not 
move  ;  so  he  sits  still  at  times  for  many  min- 
utes, watching  you  from  some  little  knoll.  As 
long  as  he  is  motionless  your  eyes  pass  over  him 
as  a  patch  of  sand  or  a  weathered  rock.  When 
he  starts  to  move,  it  is  with  some  deliberation. 
He  prefers  a  dog-trot  and  often  several  shots 
from  your  rifle  will  not  stir  him  into  a  run.  He 
slips  along  easily  and  gracefully — a  lean,  hungry- 
looking  wretch  with  all  the  insolence  of  a  hood- 
lum and  all  the  shrewdness  of  a  thief.  He  re- 
quires just  such  qualities  together  with  a  keen 
nose,  good  eyes  and  ears,  and  some  swiftness  of 
dash  to  make  a  living.  The  desert  bill  of  fare 
is  not  all  that  a  wolf  could  desire  ;  but  the  coyote 
is  not  very  particular.  Everything  is  food  that 
comes  to  his  jaws.     He  likes  rabbit  meat,  but 


Cleverness 
of  the 
coyote. 


160 


THE  DESERT 


His  aubsist- 
enee. 


does  not  often  get  it.  For  desert  rabbits  do 
not  go  to  sleep  with  both  eyes  shut.  Failing 
the  rabbit  he  snuffs  out  birds  and  their  nests, 
trails  up  anything  sick  or  wounded,  and  in  emer- 
gencies runs  down  and  devours  a  lizard.  If 
animal  food  is  scarce  he  turns  his  attention  to 
vegetation,  eats  prickly  pears  and  mesquite 
beans ;  and  up  in  the  mountains  he  stands  on 
his  hind  legs  and  gathers  choke  cherries  and 
manzanitas.  With  such  precarious  living  he  be- 
comes gaunt,  leathery,  muscled  with  whip-cord. 
There  is  a  meagreness  and  a  scantiness  about  him ; 
his  coarse  coat  of  hair  is  sun-scorched,  his  whole 
appearance  is  arid,  dusty,  sandy.  There  is  no 
other  animal  so  thoroughly  typical  of  the  desert. 
He  belongs  there,  skulking  along  the  arroyos 
and  washes  just  as  a  horned  toad  belongs  under 
a  granite  bowlder.  That  he  can  live  there  at  all 
is  due  to  Nature's  gift  to  him  of  all-around  clev- 
erness. 

The  fox  is  usually  accounted  the  epitome  of 
animal  cunning,  but  here  in  the  desert  he  is 
not  frequently  seen  and  is  usually  thought  less 
clever  than  the  coyote.  He  prefers  the  foot- 
hills and  the  cover  of  dense  chaparral  where  he 
preys  upon  birds,  smells  out  the  nest  of  the 
valley- quail,  catches  a  wood-rat ;  or,  if  hard 


DESERT  ANIMALS 


161 


pushed  to  it,  makes  a  meal  of  crickets  and  grass- 
hoppers. But  even  at  this  he  is  not  more  facile 
than  the  coyote.  Nor  can  he  surpass  the  coyote 
in  robbing  a  hen-roost  and  keeping  out  of  a 
trap  while  doing  it.  He  cuts  no  important  fig- 
ure on  the  desert  and,  indeed,  he  is  hardly  a 
desert  animal  though  sometimes  found  there. 
The  conditions  of  existence  are  too  severe  for 
him.  The  strength  of  the  cat,  the  legs  of  the 
wolf,  and  the  stomach  of  the  coyote  are  not  his ; 
and  so  he  prowls  nearer  civilization  and  takes 
more  risk  for  an  easier  life. 

And  the  prey,  what  of  the  prey  !  The  ani- 
mals of  the  desert  that  furnish  food  for  the 
meat  eaters  like  the  wolf  and  the  cat — the  ani- 
mals that  cannot  fight  back  or  at  least  wage  un- 
equal warfare — are  they  left  hopelessly  and  help- 
lessly at  the  mercy  of  the  destroyers  ?  Not  so. 
Nature  endows  them  and  protects  them  as  best 
she  can.  Every  one  of  them  has  some  device  to 
baffle  or  trick  the  enemy.  Even  the  poor  little 
horned  toad,  that  has  only  his  not  too  thick 
skin  to  save  him,  can  slightly  change  the  color 
of  that  skin  to  suit  the  bowlder  he  is  flattened 
upon  so  that  the  keenest  eye  would  pass  him 
over  unnoticed.  The  jack-rabbit  cannot  change 
his  skin,  but  he  knows  many  devices  whereby  he 


The  prey. 


Devices  for 
escape. 


162 


THE  DESERT 


Speed  of  the 
jaek-rabbit. 


contrives  to  save  it.  Lying  in  his  form  at  the 
root  of  some  bush  or  cactus  he  is  not  easily  seen. 
He  crouches  low  and  the  gray  of  his  fur  fits 
into  the  sand  imperceptibly.  You  do  not  see 
him  but  he  sees  you.  His  eyes  never  close ; 
they  are  always  watching.  Look  at  them  close- 
ly as  he  lies  dead  before  you  and  how  large  and 
protruding  they  are  !  In  the  life  they  see  every- 
thing that  moves.  And  if  his  eyes  fail  him, 
perhaps  his  ears  will  not.  He  was  named  the 
jackass-rabbit  because  of  his  long  ears  ;  and  the 
length  of  them  is  in  exact  proportion  to  their 
acuteness  of  hearing.  No  footstep  escapes  them. 
They  are  natural  megaphones  for  the  reception 
of  sound.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  his  nose 
is  just  as  acute  as  his  eyes  and  his  ears.  So 
that  all  told  he  is  not  an  animal  easily  caught 
napping. 

And  if  the  jack-rabbit's  senses  fail  him,  has 
he  no  other  resource  ?  Certainly,  yes  ;  that  is  if 
he  is  not  captured.  In  proportion  to  his  size 
he  has  the  strongest  hind  legs  of  anything  on 
the  desert.  In  this  respect  he  is  almost  like  a 
kangaroo.  When  he  starts  running  and  begins 
with  his  long  bound,  there  is  nothing  that  can 
overtake  him  except  a  trained  greyhound.  lie 
ricochets  from  knoll  to  knoll  like  a  bounding 


DESERT  ANIMALS 


163 


ball,  and  as  he  crosses  ahead  of  you  perhaps  yon 
think  he  is  not  moving  very  fast.  But  shoot  at 
him  and  see  how  far  behind  him  your  rifle  ball 
strikes  the  dust.  No  coyote  or  wolf  is  foolish 
enough  to  chase  him  or  ever  try  to  run  him 
down.  His  endurance  is  quite  as  good  as  his 
gpeed.  It  makes  no  difference  about  his  not 
drinking  water  and  that  all  his  energy  comes 
from  bark  and  dry  grass.  He  keeps  right  on 
running  ;  over  stones,  through  cactus,  down  a 
canyon,  up  a  mountain.  For  keen  senses  and 
swift  legs  he  is  the  desert  type  as  emphatically 
as  the  coyote  that  is  forever  prowling  on  his 
track. 

The  little  '^  cotton-tail  '*  rabbit  is  not  perhaps 
so  well  provided  for  as  the  jack-rabbit ;  but 
then  he  does  not  live  in  the  open  and  is  not  so 
exposed  to  attack.  He  hides  in  brush,  weeds,  or 
grass ;  and  when  startled  makes  a  quick  dash 
for  a  hole  in  the  ground  or  a  ledge  of  rock.  His 
legs  are  good  for  a  short  distance,  and  his  senses 
are  acute  ;  but  the  wild  cat  or  the  coyote  catches 
him  at  last.  The  continuance  of  his  species 
lies  in  prolific  breeding.  The  wild  cat,  too, 
catches  a  good  many  gophers,  rats,  mice,  and 
squirrels.  The  squirrels  are  many  in  kind  and 
beautiful  in  their  forms  and  colorings.     One 


His  endur- 
ance. 


The  ^'cotton- 
tail.'' 


164 


THE  DESERT 


can  hardly  count  them  all — squirrels  with  long 
tails  and  short  tails  and  no  tails  ;  squirrels 
yellow,  brown,  gray,  blue,  and  slate-colored. 
They  live  in  the  rocks  about  the  bases  of  the 
desert  mountains ;  and  eventually  they  fall  a 
prey  to  the  wild  cat  who  watches  for  them  just 
as  the  domestic  cat  watches  for  the  hoase  rat. 
Their  only  safeguard  is  their  energetic  way  of 
darting  into  a  hole.  For  all  their  sharp  noses 
and  ears  they  are  foolish  little  folk  and  will 
keep  poking  their  heads  out  to  see  what  is  go- 
ing on. 

But  for  acute  senses,  swift  legs,  and  powerful 
endurance  nothing  can  surpass  the  antelope. 
He  is  rarely  seen  to-day  (more's  the  pity  !)  ;  but 
only  a  few  years  ago  there  were  quite  a  number 
of  them  on  the  Sonora  edge  of  the  Colorado 
Desert.  Usually  they  prefer  the  higher  mesas 
where  the  land  is  grass-grown  and  the  view  is 
unobstructed  ;  but  they  have  been  known  to 
come  far  down  into  the  desert.  And  the  ante- 
lope is  very  well  fitted  for  the  sandy  waste.  The 
lack  of  water  does  not  bother  him,  he  can  eat 
anything  that  grows  in  grass  or  bush  ;  and  he 
can  keep  from  being  eaten  about  as  cleverly  as 
any  of  the  deer  tribe.  His  eye  alone  is  a  marvel 
of  development.     It  protrudes  from  the  socket 


DESERT  ANIMALS 


165 


— bulges  out  almost  like  the  end  of  an  egg — 
and  if  there  were  corners  on  the  desert  mesas 
I  believe  that  eye  could  see  around  them.  He 
cannot  be  approached  in  any  direction  without 
seeing  what  is  going  on ;  but  he  may  be  still- 
hunted  and  shot  from  behind  crag  or  cover. 

His  curiosity  is  usually  the  death  of  him,  be- 
cause he  will  persist  in  standing  still  and  look- 
ing at  things ;  but  his  senses  almost  always  give 
him  fair  warning.  His  nose  and  ears  are  just 
as  acute  as  his  eyes.  And  how  he  can  run  ! 
His  legs  seem  to  open  and  shut  like  the  blades 
of  a  pocket-knife,  so  leisurely,  so  apparently 
effortless.  But  how  they  do  take  him  over  the 
ground  !  With  one  leg  shot  from  under  him 
he  runs  pretty  nearly  as  fast  as  before.  A 
tougher,  more  wiry,  more  beautiful  animal  was 
never  created.  Perhaps  that  is  the  reason  why 
every  man's  hand  has  been  raised  against  him 
until  now  his  breed  is  almost  extinct.  He  was 
well  fitted  to  survive  on  the  desert  mesas  and 
the  upland  plains — a  fine  type  of  swiftness  and 
endurance — but  Nature  In  her  economy  never 
reckoned  with  the  magazine  rifle  nor  the  greed 
of  the  individual  who  calls  himself  a  sports- 
man. 

The  mule-deer  with  his  large  ears,  long  muz- 


His  nose 
and  ears. 


His 
swiftness. 


166 


THE  DESERT 


zle  and  keen  eyes,  is  almost  as  well  provided  for 
as  the  antelope.  He  has  survived  the  antelope 
possibly  because  he  does  not  live  in  the  open 
country.  He  haunts  the  brush  and  the  rock 
cover  of  the  gorge  and  the  mountain  side. 
There  in  the  heavy  chaparral  he  will  skulk 
and  hide  while  you  may  pass  within  a  few  feet 
of  him.  If  he  sees  that  he  is  discovered  he 
can  make  a  dash  up  or  down  the  mountain  in 
a  way  that  astonishes.  Stones,  sticks,  and  brush 
have  no  terror  for  him.  He  jumps  over  them 
or  smashes  through  them.  He  will  bound 
across  a  talus  of  broken  porphyry  that  will  cut 
the  toughest  boots  to  pieces,  striking  all  four 
feet  with  every  bound,  and  yet  not  ruffle  the 
hair  around  his  dew  claws;  or  he  will  dash 
through  a  tough  dry  chaparral  at  full  speed 
without  receiving  a  scrape  or  a  cut  of  any  kind. 
The  speed  he  attains  on  such  ground  aston- 
ishes again.  His  feet  seem  to  strike  rubber  in- 
stead of  stone ;  for  he  bounds  like  a  ball,  de- 
scribes a  quarter  circle,  and  bounds  again.  The 
magazine  of  your  rifle  may  be  emptied  at  him ; 
and  still  he  may  go  on,  gayly  cutting  quarter 
circles,  until  he  disappears  over  the  ridge.  He 
is  one  of  the  hardiest  of  the  desert  progeny. 
The  lack  of  water  affects  him  little.    He  browses 


DESEKT  ANIMALS 


167 


and  gets  fat  on  twigs  and  leaves  that  seem  to 
have  as  little  nutriment  about  them  as  a  tele- 
graph-pole ;  and  he  lies  down  on  a  bed  of  stones 
as  upon  a  bed  of  roses.  He  is  as  tough  as 
the  goats  and  sheep  that  keep  well  up  on  the 
high  mountain  ridges  ;  and  in  cleverness  is  per- 
haps superior  to  the  antelope.  But  oftentimes 
he  will  turn  around  to  have  a  last  look,  and 
therein  lies  his  undoing.  In  Sonora  there  is 
found  a  dwarf  deer — a  foolish  if  pretty  little 
creature — and  along  river-beds  the  white-tailed 
deer  is  occasionally  seen ;  but  these  deer  with 
the  goats  and  the  sheep  hardly  belong  to  the 
desert,  though  living  upon  its  confines. 

In  fact,  none  of  the  far-travelling  animals  lives 
right  down  in  the  desert  gravel-beds  continu- 
ously. They  go  there  at  night  or  in  the  early 
morning,  but  in  the  daytime  they  are  usually 
found  in  the  neighboring  hills.  The  rabbits, 
rats,  and  squirrels,  if  undisturbed,  will  usually 
stay  upon  the  flat  ground ;  and  there  is  also  an- 
other variety  of  desert  life  that  does  not  wander 
far  from  the  sand  and  the  rocks.  I  mean  the 
reptiles.  They  are  not  as  a  class  swift  in 
flight,  nor  over-clever  in  sense,  nor  cunning  in 
devices.  Nor  have  they  sufficient  strength  to 
grapple  and  fight  with  the  larger  animals.     It 


Habits  of 
the  desert 
deer. 


The  white- 
tail. 


The 
reptiles. 


168 


THE  DESERT 


Poison  of 
re^tUe$. 


Thefang 
and  sting. 


wonld  seem  as  though  Nature  had  brought 
them  into  the  desert  only  half  made-up — a  prey 
to  every  beast  and  bird.  But  no ;  they  are 
given  the  most  deadly  weapon  of  defence  of  all 
— ^poison.  Almost  all  of  the  reptiles  have  poison 
about  them  in  fang  or  sting.  We  are  accus- 
tomed to  label  them  "  poisonous  "  or  "not  poi- 
sonous," as  they  kill  or  do  not  kill  a  human 
being ;  but  that  is  not  the  proper  criterion  by 
which  to  judge.  The  bite  of  the  trap-door 
spider  will  not  seriously  affect  a  man,  but  it 
will  kill  a  lizard  in  a  few  minutes.  In  propor- 
tion to  his  size  the  common  red  ant  of  the 
desert  is  more  poisonous  than  the  rattlesnake. 
It  is  reiterated  with  much  positiveness  that  a 
swarm  of  these  ants  have  been  known  to  kill 
men.  There  is,  however,  only  one  reptile  on  the 
desert  that  humanity  need  greatly  fear  on  ac- 
count of  his  poison  and  that  is  the  rattlesnake. 
There  are  several  varieties  called  in  local  par- 
lance "side-winders,"  "ground  rattlers,"  and 
the  like ;  but  the  ordinary  spotted,  brown,  or 
yellow  rattlesnake  is  the  type.  He  is  not  a 
pleasant  creature,  but  then  he  is  not  often  met 
with.  In  travelling  many  hundreds  of  miles  on 
the  desert  I  never  encountered  more  than  half  a 
dozen. 


DESERT  ANIMALS 


169 


The  rattle  is  indescribable,  but  a  person  will 
know  it  the  first  time  he  hears  it.  It  is  some- 
thing between  a  bnzz  and  a  burr,  and  can 
cause  a  cold  perspiration  in  a  minute  fraction 
of  time.  The  snake  is  very  slow  in  getting 
ready  to  strike,  in  fact  sluggish  ;  but  once  the 
head  shoots  out,  it  does  so  with  the  swiftness  of 
an  arrow.  Nothing  except  the  road-runner  can 
dodge  it  The  poison  is  deadly  if  the  fang  has 
entered  a  vein  or  a  fleshy  portion  of  the  body 
where  the  flow  of  blood  to  the  heart  is  free.  If 
struck  on  the  hand  or  foot,  the  man  may  re- 
cover, because  the  circulation  there  is  slow  and 
the  heart  has  time  to  repel  the  attack.  Every 
animal  on  the  desert  knows  just  how  venomous 
is  that  poison.  Even  your  dog  knows  it  by  in- 
stinct. He  may  shake  and  kill  garter-snakes, 
but  he  will  not  touch  the  rattlesnake. 

All  of  the  spider  family  are  poisonous  and 
you  can  find  almost  every  one  of  them  on  the 
desert.  The  most  sharp-witted  of  the  family  is 
the  trap-door  spider — the  name  coming  from 
the  door  which  he  hinges  and  fastens  over  the 
entrance  of  his  hole  in  the  ground.  The  taran- 
tula is  simply  an  overgrown  spider,  very  heavy 
in  weight,  and  inclined  to  be  slow  and  stupid 
in   action.     He  is  a  ferocious-looking  wretch 


The  rattle- 
snake. 


Effect  of  the 
poison. 


Spiders  and 
tarantulas. 


170 


THE  DESERT 


Centipedes 

and 

tcorpiona. 


Lizards 
and  swi/ts. 


Tlie  hydro- 

pkobin 

skunk. 


and  has  a  ferocious  bite.  It  makes  an  ugly 
wound  and  is  deadly  enough  to  small  animals. 
The  scorpion  has  the  reputation  of  being  very 
venomous ;  but  his  sting  on  the  hand  amounts 
to  little  more  than  that  of  an  ordinary  wasp. 
Nor  is  the  long-bodied,  many-legged,  rather 
graceful  centipede  so  great  a  poison-carrier  as 
has  been  alleged.  They  are  all  of  them  poi- 
sonous, but  in  varying  degrees.  Doubtless  the 
(to  us)  harmless  horned  toads  and  the  swifts 
have  for  their  enemies  some  venom  in  store. 

The  lizards  are  many  in  variety,  and  their 
colors  are  often  very  beautiful  in  grays,  yellows, 
reds,  blues,  and  indigoes.  The  Gila  monster 
belongs  to  their  family,  though  he  is  much 
larger.  The  look  of  him  is  very  forbidding  and 
he  has  an  ugly  way  of  hissing  at  you  ;  but  just 
how  venomous  he  is  I  do  not  know.  Very 
likely  there  is  some  poison  about  him,  though 
this  has  been  denied.  It  would  seem  that  every- 
thing that  cannot  stand  or  run  or  hide  must 
be  defended  somehow.  Even  the  poor  little 
skunk  when  he  comes  to  live  on  the  desert  de- 
velops poisoned  teeth  and  his  bite  produces 
what  is  called  hydrophobia.  The  truth  about 
the  hydrophobia  skunk  is,  I  imagine,  that  he  is 
an  eater  of  carrion  ;  and  when  he  bites  a  per- 


DESEET  ANIMALS 


171 


son  he  is  likely  to  produce  blood-poisoning, 
which  is  miscalled  hydrophobia. 

Taking  them  for  all  in  all,  they  seem  like  a 
precious  pack  of  cutthroats,  these  beasts  and 
reptiles  of  the  desert.  Perhaps  there  never  was 
a  life  so  nurtured  in  violence,  so  tutored  in  at- 
tack and  defence  as  this.  The  warfare  is  con- 
tinuous from  the  birth  to  the  death.  Every- 
thing must  fight,  fly,  feint,  or  use  poison  ;  and 
every  slayer  eventually  becomes  a  victim.  What 
a  murderous  brood  for  Nature  to  bring  forth  ! 
And  what  a  place  she  has  chosen  in  which  to 
breed  them !  Not  only  the  struggle  among 
themselves,  but  the  struggle  with  the  land, 
the  elements — the  eternal  fighting  with  heat, 
drouth,  and  famine.  What  else  but  fierceness 
and  savagery  could  come  out  of  such  condi- 
tions ? 

But,  after  all,  is  there  not  something  in  the 
sheer  brute  courage  that  endures,  worthy  of  our 
admiration  ?  These  animals  have  made  the  best 
out  of  the  worst,  and  their  struggle  has  given 
them  a  physical  character  which  is,  shall  we 
not  say,  beautiful  ?  Perhaps  you  shudder  at  the 
thought  of  a  panther  dragging  down  a  deer — 
one  enormous  paw  over  the  deer's  muzzle,  one 
on  his  neck,  and  the  strain  of  all  the  back  mus- 


The 

cutthroat 

band. 


The 

eternal 

struggle. 


Brute 
courage. 


172 


THE  DESERT 


Brute 
character. 


Beauty  in 
character. 


Oraeefvl 
forms  of 
aniinals. 


cles  coming  into  play.  But  was  not  that  the 
purpose  for  which  the  panther  was  designed  ? 
As  a  living  machine  how  wonderfully  he  works! 
Look  at  the  same  subject  done  in  bronze  by 
Barye  and  you  will  see  what  a  revelation  of 
character  the  great  statuary  thought  it.  Look, 
too,  at  Barye's  wolf  and  fox,  look  at  the  lions  of 
Gericault,  and  the  tigers  and  serpents  of  Dela- 
croix ;  and  with  all  the  jaw  and  poison  of  them 
how  beautiful  they  are  I 

You  will  say  they  are  made  beautiful  through 
the  art  of  the  artists,  and  that  is  partly  true ; 
but  we  are  seeing  only  what  the  artists  saw. 
And  how  did  they  come  to  choose  such  sub- 
jects ?  Why,  simply  because  they  recognized 
that  for  art  there  is  no  such  thing  as  nobility  or 
vulgarity  of  subject.  Everything  may  be  fit  if 
it  possesses  character.  The  beautiful  is  the 
characteristic — the  large,  full-bodied,  well-ex- 
pressed truth  of  character.  At  least  that  is  one 
very  positive  phase  of  beauty. 

Even  the  classic  idea  of  beauty,  which  re- 
gards only  the  graceful  in  form  or  movement 
or  the  sensuous  in  color,  finds  types  among 
these  desert  inhabitants.  The  dullest  person 
in  the  arts  could  not  but  see  fine  form  and  pro- 
portion in  the  panther,  graceful  movement  in 


DESERT  ANIMALS 


the  antelope,  and  charm   of  color  in  all  the 
pretty  rock  squirrels.    For  myself,  being  some- 
what prejudiced  in  favor  of  this  drear  waste 
and  its  savage  progeny,  I  may  confess  to  hav- 
ing watched  the  flowing  movements  of  snakes, 
their  coil  and  rattle  and  strike,  many  times  and 
with  great  pleasure  ;  to  having  stretched  my- 
self for  hours  upon  granite  bowlders  while  fol- 
lowing the  play  of  indigo  lizards  in  the  sand ; 
to    having  traced  with   surprise  the   slightly 
changing  skin  of  the  horned  toad  produced  by 
the  reflection  of  different  colors  held  near  him. 
I  may  also  confess  that  common  as  is  the  jack- 
rabbit  he  never  bursts  away  in  speed  before  me 
without  being  followed  by  my  wonder  at  his 
graceful  mystery  of  motion  ;  that  the  crawl  of 
a  wild  cat  upon  game  is  something  that  arrests 
and  fascinates  by  its  masterful  skill ;  and  that 
even  that  desert  tramp,  the  coyote,  is  entitled 
to  admiration  for  the  graceful  way  he  can  slip 
through  patches  of  cactus.     The  fault  is  not  in 
the  subject.     It  is  not  vulgar  or  ugly.     The 
trouble  is  that  we  perhaps  have  not  the  prop- 
er angle  of  vision.     If  we  understood  all,  we 
should  admire  all. 


TheArst 
day  8  waik. 


Tracks  in 
the  taruL 


CHAPTER  X 
WINGED  LIFE 

The  desert's  secrets  of  life  and  growth  and 
death  are  not  to  be  read  at  a  glance.  The  first 
day's  walk  is  usually  a  disappointment.  You 
see  little  more  than  a  desolate  waste.  The 
light  of  the  blue  sky,  the  subtle  color  of  the  air, 
the  roll  of  the  valleys,  the  heave  of  the  moun- 
tains do  not  reveal  themselves  at  once.  The 
vegetation  you  think  looks  like  a  thin  covering 
of  dry  sticks.  And  as  for  the  animals,  the  birds 
— the  living  things  on  the  desert — they  are  not 
apparent  at  all. 

But  the  casual  stroll  does  not  bring  you  to 
the  end  of  the  desert's  resources.  You  may 
perhaps  walk  for  a  whole  day  and  see  not  a  beast 
or  a  bird  of  any  description.  Yet  they  are  here. 
Even  in  the  lava-beds  where  not  even  cactus 
will  grow,  and  where  to  all  appearance  there  is 
no  life  whatever,  you  may  see  tracks  in  the  sand 
where  quail  and  road-runners  and  linnets  have 
been  running  about  in  search  of  food.  There 
174 


WINGED  LIFE 


175 


are  tracks,  too,  of  the  coyote  and  the  wild  cat — 
tracks  following  tracks.  The  animals  and  the 
birds  belong  to  the  desert  or  the  neighboring 
mountains ;  but  they  are  not  always  on  view. 
Yon  meet  with  them  only  in  the  early  morning 
and  evening  when  they  are  moving  about.  In 
the  middle  of  the  day  they  are  in  the  shadow  of 
bush  or  rock  or  lying  in  some  cut  bank  or  cave 
— keeping  out  of  the  direct  rays  of  the  sun. 
The  birds  are  not  very  numerous  even  when 
they  come  forth.  They  prefer  places  that  afford 
better  cover.  And  yet  as  you  make  a  memo- 
randum of  each  new  bird  you  see  you  are  sur- 
prised after  a  time  to  find  how  many  are  the 
varieties. 

And  the  surprise  grows  When  you  think  of 
the  dangers  and  hardships  that  continually  har- 
ass bird-life  here  in  the  desert.  It  may  be 
fancied  perhaps  that  the  bird  is  exempt  from 
danger  because  he  has  wings  to  carry  him  out 
of  the  reach  of  the  animals  ;  but  we  forget  that 
he  has  enemies  of  his  own  kind  in  the  air.  And 
if  he  avoids  the  hawks  by  day,  how  shall  he 
avoid  the  owls  by  night  ?  Where  at  night  shall 
he  go  for  protection  ?  There  are  no  broad- 
leaved  trees  to  offer  a  refuge — in  fact  few  trees 
of  any  sort.     The  bushes  are  not  so  high  that 


Scarcity  of 
birds. 


Dangers  of 
bird-life. 


No  cover  for 
protection. 


176 


THE  DESERT 


Thefood 
problem. 


The  heat 
and  drouth 


a  coyote  cannot  reach,  to  their  top  at  a  jump  ; 
nor  are  the  spines  and  ledges  of  rock  in  the 
mountains  so  steep  that  a  wild  cat  cannot  climb 
np  them. 

No ;  the  bird  is  subject  to  the  same  dangers 
as  the  animals  and  the  plants.  Something  is 
forever  on  his  trail.  He  must  always  be  on 
guard.  And  the  food  problem,  ever  of  vital 
interest  to  bird-life,  bothers  him  just  as  much 
as  it  does  the  coyote.  There  is  little  for  him 
to  eat  and  nothing  for  him  to  drink  ;  and  hard- 
ly a  resting-place  for  the  sole  of  his  foot.  Be- 
sides, it  would  seem  as  though  he  should  be  af- 
fected by  the  intense  heat  more  than  he  is  in 
reality.  Humanity  at  times  has  difficulty  in 
withstanding  this  heat,  for  though  it  is  not 
suffocating,  it  parches  the  mouth  and  dries  up 
the  blood  so  rapidly  that  if  water  is  not  attain- 
able the  effect  is  soon  apparent.  The  animals 
— that  is,  the  wild  ones — are  never  fazed  by  it ; 
but  the  domestic  horse,  dog,  and  cow  yield  to 
it  almost  as  readily  as  a  man.  And  men  and 
animals  are  all  of  low-blood  temperature — a 
man's  normal  temperature  being  about  98  F. 
But  what  of  the  bird  in  his  coat  of  feathers 
which  may  add  to  or  detract  from  his  warmth  ? 
What  is  his  normal  temperature  ?      It  varies 


WINGED  LIFE 


177 


with  the  species,  so  far  as  I  can  ascertain  by  ex- 
periment, from  112  to  120  F.  Consider  that 
blood  temperature  in  connection  with  a  sur- 
rounding air  varying  from  100  to  125  F.  !  It 
would  seem  impossible  for  any  life  to  support 
it.  One  may  well  wonder  what  strange  wings 
beat  this  glowing  air,  what  bird-life  lives  in  this 
fiery  waste  ! 

Yet  the  desert  birds  look  not  very  different 
from  their  cousins  of  the  woods  and  streams 
except  that  they  are  thinner,  more  subdued  in 
color,  somewhat  more  alert.  They  are  very 
pretty,  very  innocent-looking  birds.  But  we 
may  be  sure  that  living  here  in  the  desert,  en- 
during its  hardships  and  participating  in  its  in- 
cessant struggle  for  life  and  for  the  species,  they 
have  just  the  same  savage  instincts  as  the  plants 
and  the  animals.  The  sprightliness  and  the 
color  may  suggest  harmlessness  ;  but  the  eye, 
the  beak,  the  claw  are  designed  for  destruction. 
The  road-runner  is  one  of  the  mildest-looking 
and  most  graceful  birds  of  the  desert,  but  the 
spring  of  the  wild  cat  to  crush  down  a  rabbit  is 
not  more  fierce  than  the  snap  of  the  bird's  beak 
as  he  tosses  a  luckless  lizard.  He  is  the  only 
thing  on  the  desert  that  has  the  temerity  to 
fight  a  rattlesnake.     It  is  said  that  he  kills  the 


178 


THE  DESERT 


Wrentand 
Jly-catchers. 


Develop- 
ment  of 

rnat 
racteris- 
Ucs. 


snake,  but  as  to  that  I  am  not  able  to  give  evi- 
dence. 

And  it  is  not  alone  the  bird  of  prey — not 
alone  the  road-mnners,  the  eagles,  the  vult- 
ures, the  hawks,  and  the  owls  that  are  savage 
of  mood.  Every  little  wisp  of  energy  that 
carries  a  bunch  of  feathers  is  endowed  with  the 
same  spirit.  The  downward  swoop  of  the  cac- 
tus wren  upon  a  butterfly  and  the  snip  of  his 
little  scissors  bill,  the  dash  after  insects  of  the 
fly-catchers,  vireos,  swallows,  bats,  and  whip- 
poor-wills  are  just  as  murderous  in  kind  as  the 
blow  of  the  condor  and  the  vice-like  clutch  of 
his  talons  as  they  sink  into  the  back  of  a  rab- 
bit. Skill  and  strength  in  the  chase  are  abso- 
lutely necessary  in  a  desert  where  food  is  so 
scarce,  and  in  proportion  the  little  birds  have 
these  qualities  in  common  with  the  great. 

And  naturally,  as  in  the  case  of  the  animals, 
the  skill  and  the  strength  develop  along  the  line 
of  the  bird's  needs,  producing  that  quality  of 
character,  that  fitness  for  the  work  cut  out  for 
him,  to  which  we  have  so  often  referred.  There 
are  birds  that  belong  almost  solely  to  the  king- 
dom of  the  air — birds  like  the  condor,  the 
vulture,  and  the  eagle.  Upon  the  ground  they 
move  awkwardly,   not  having  better  feet  to 


WINGED  LIFE 


walk  with  than  ducks  and  geese.  The  talons 
are  too  much  developed  for  walking.  When 
they  rise  from  the  ground  they  do  it  heavily 
and  with  quick  flapping  wings.  Not  until 
they  are  fairly  started  in  the  upper  air  do 
they  show  what  wonderful  wing-power  they 


The  common  brown-black  vulture  or  turkey 
buzzard  is  the  type  of  all  the  wheelers  and  sail- 
ers. The  *'  soaring  eagle  "  of  poetry  is  some- 
thing of  a  goose  beside  him.  For  the  wings  of 
the  vulture  bear  him  through  wind,  sun,  and 
heat,  hour  after  hour,  without  a  pause.  To 
see  him  circling  as  he  hunts  down  a  mountain 
range  a  hundred  miles  or  more,  one  might 
think  that  the  abnormal  breast-muscles  never 
grew  weary.  He  goes  over  every  foot  of  the 
ground  with  his  eyes  and  at  the  same  time 
watches  every  other  vulture  in  the  sky.  Let 
one  of  his  fellows  stop  circling  and  drop  earth- 
ward on  a  long  incline,  and  immediately  he  is 
followed  by  all  the  black  crew.  They  know 
instantly  that  something  has  been  discovered. 
But  often  the  hunt  is  in  vain,  and  then  for 
whole  days  at  a  time  those  motionless  wings 
bear  their  burden  apparently  without  fatigue. 
With  no  food  perhaps  for   a   fortnight   and 


180 


THE  DESEBT 


never  any  water,  that  spare  rack  of  muscles 
sails  the  air  with  as  little  effort  as  floating 
thistle-down.  No  one  knows  jnst  how  it  is 
done.  In  blow  or  calm,  against  the  wind  or 
with  it,  high  in  the  blue  or  low  over  the 
ground,  any  place,  anywhere,  and  under  any 
circumstances  those  wings  cut  through  the  air 
almost  like  sunlight.  You  can  hear  a  whizz 
like  the  flight  of  arrows  as  the  bird  passes 
close  over  your  head ;  but  you  cannot  see  the 
slightest  motion  in  the  feathers. 

The  hot,  thin  air  of  the  desert  would  seem  a 
less  favorable  air  for  sailing  than  the  moister 
atmosphere  of  the  south;  but  the  vulture  of 
the  tropics  is  not  the  equal  of  the  desert  bird. 
He  is  heavier,  lazier,  and  more  stupid — possi- 
bly because  better  fed.  There  are  several  vari- 
eties in  the  family,  the  chief  variants  being  the 
one  with  white  tipped  wings  and  the  one  with 
a  white  eagle-like  head.  Neither  of  them  is  as 
good  on  the  wing  as  the  black  species,  though 
none  of  them  is  to  be  despised.  Even  the  or- 
dinary carrion  crow  of  the  desert  is  an  expert 
sailer  compared  with  any  of  the  crow  family  to 
be  found  elsewhere.  The  exigencies  of  the  sit- 
uation seem  to  require  wings  developed  for  long- 
distance flights ;  and  the  vultures,  the  crows. 


WINGED   LIFE 


181 


the  eagles,  the  hawks,  all  respond  after  their 
individual  fashions. 

The  condor  is  perhaps  the  ynlture's  peer 
in  the  matter  of  sailing.  He  belongs  to  the 
vulture  family,  though  very  much  larger  than 
any  of  its  members,  sometimes  measuring 
fifteen  feet  across  the  wings  and  weighing  forty 
pounds.  He  is  the  largest  bird  on  the  conti- 
nent. At  the  present  time  he  is  occasionally 
seen  wheeling  high  in  air  like  a  mere  insect  in 
the  great  blue  dome.  It  is  said  that  he  soars 
as  high  as  twenty-five  thousand  feet  above  the 
earth.  But  to-day  he  sails  alone  and  his  tribe 
has  grown  less  year  by  year.  With  the  eagles 
he  keeps  well  up  in  the  high  sierras  and  builds 
a  nest  on  the  inaccessible  peaks  or  along  the 
steep  escarpments.  He  belongs  to  the  desert 
only  because  it  is  one  of  his  hunting-grounds. 

This  may  be  said  of  the  eagles  and  the  hawks. 
They  hunt  the  desert  by  day,  but  go  home  to 
the  mountains  at  night.  The  owls  are  some- 
what different,  not  being  given  to  long  flight. 
The  deep  caves  or  wind-worn  recesses  under 
mountain  ledges  furnish  them  abiding-places. 
These  caves  also  send  forth  at  dusk  a  full  com- 
plement of  bats  that  seem  not  different  from 
the  ordinary  Eastern  bats.      The   burrowing 


182 


THE  DESERT 


Bats  and 
owls. 


The  burrow- 
ing owl. 


owl  is  perhaps  misnamed,  though  not  misplaced. 
There  is  no  evidence  whatever,  that  I  have  ever 
seen  or  heard,  to  show  that  he  burrows.  What 
happens  is  that  he  crawls  into  some  hole  that  is 
already  burrowed  instead  of  a  cave  or  recess  in 
the  rocks.  A  prairie  dog  or  badger  hole  is  his 
preference.  That  the  place  has  inhabitants, 
including  the  tarantula  and  (it  is  said)  the  rat- 
tlesnake, does  not  bother  the  owl.  He  walks 
in  with  his  mate  and  speedily  makes  himself  at 
home.  How  the  different  families  get  on  to- 
gether can  be  imagined  by  one  person  as  well  as 
by  another.  They  do  not  seem  to  pay  any  at- 
tention to  each  other  so  far  as  I  have  observed. 
Ordinarily  the  desert  animals,  birds,  and  rep- 
tiles agree  to  no  such  truce.  They  are  at  war 
from  the  start.  I  do  not  know  that  the  owls, 
the  bats,  the  night-hawks  have  any  special 
equipment  for  carrying  on  their  part  of  the 
war.  Sometimes  I  have  fancied  they  had  larger 
eyes  than  is  usual  with  their  Tiinds  outside  of 
the  desert ;  but  I  have  no  proof  of  this.  Per- 
haps it  is  like  the  speculation  as  to  whether  the 
buzzard  sees  or  scents  the  carrion  that  he  dis- 
covers so  readily — hardly  amenable  to  proof. 

All  of  the  air-birds  are  strikingly  developed 
in  the  wings  and  equally  undeveloped  in  the 


WINGED  LIFE 


feet,  while  all  the  ground-birds  of  the  desert 
are  just  the  reverse  of  this — that  is,  deficient  in 
wings  but  strong  of  foot  and  leg.  The  road- 
runner,  or  as  he  is  sometimes  called  the  chap- 
arral-cock, is  a  notable  instance  of  this.  He  is 
a  lizard-eater,  and  in  order  to  eat  he  must  first 
catch  his  lizard.  Now  this  is  by  no  means  an 
easy  task.  The  ordinary  gray,  brown,  or  yel- 
low lizard  is  the  swiftest  dodger  and  darter 
there  is  in  the  sand,  and  even  in  straight-line 
running  he  will  travel  too  fast  for  an  ordinary 
dog  to  catch  him.  His  facility,  too,  in  dashing 
up,  over,  and  under  bowlders  is  not  to  be  under- 
estimated. The  road-runner's  task  then  is  not 
an  easy  one,  and  yet  he  seems  to  accomplish  it 
easily.  There  is  no  great  effort  about  his  pur- 
suit and  yet  he  generally  manages  to  catch  the 
lizard.  It  is  because  his  legs  are  specially  con- 
structed for  running,  and  his  head,  neck,  and 
beak  for  darting.  His  wings  are  of  little  use. 
When  chased  by  a  dog  he  will  finally  take  to 
them,  but  only  for  about  fifty  yards.  Then  he 
drops  to  the  ground  and  starts  on  foot  again. 
He  will  run  away  from  a  man,  and  sometimes 
even  a  horse  cannot  keep  up  with  him.  Oddly 
enough,  he  seems  always  to  run  a  little  side- 
ways.    The  long  tail  (used  as  a  rudder)  is  car- 


184 


THE   DESERT 


ried  a  little  to  the  right  or  the  left  and  gives 
this  impression.  When  frightened,  his  top-knot 
is  raised  like  that  of  the  pheasant,  and  he  often 
runs  with  his  beak  open.  It  is  a  most  vicious 
beak  for  all  that  it  looks  not  more  blood-thirsty 
than  that  of  the  crow.  It  snaps  through  a 
scorpion  or  a  centipede  like  a  pair  of  sheep- 
shearfis.  And  with  all  his  energy  and  strength 
the  road-runner  weighs  only  about  a  pound. 
He  is  a  long-geared  bird,  but  not  actually  any 
larger  than  a  pigeon. 

The  blue  valley-quail — whether  of  Arizona  or 
California  breeding — is  quite  as  strong  of  leg  as 
the  road-runner,  though  not  perhaps  so  swift. 
He  does  not  care  much  about  using  his  wings  ; 
and  at  best  they  are  not  better  than  the  rather 
poor  average  of  quails'  wings.  By  that  I  mean 
that  all  quails  rise  from  cover  with  a  great  roar 
and  bustle,  and  they  fly  very  fast  for  a  short 
distance  ;  but  they  are  soon  down  upon  the 
ground,  running  and  hiding.  The  flight  of  the 
quail,  too,  is  straight  ahead.  It  is  not  possible 
for  him  to  rise  up  over  five  hundred  feet  of 
canyon  wall,  for  instance,  and  even  on  an  ordi- 
nary mountain  side  he  takes  several  flights  be- 
fore he  reaches  the  summit.  The  wings  are 
not  muscled  like  the  legs,  and  that  is  because 


WINGED  LIFE 


the  qnail  is  a  ground-bird.  He  gets  his  food 
there  and  spends  most  of  his  time  there.  In 
the  East  Bob  White  always  roosts  upon  the 
ground,  but  the  desert  quail  is  usually  too 
clever  to  trust  himself  in  such  an  exposed  place. 
He  will  travel  miles  to  get  into  a  cotton- wood 
tree  at  dusk,  and  if  there  is  water  near  at  hand 
so  much  the  better.  He  dearly  loves  the  water 
and  the  tree,  but  if  he  cannot  get  them  he  ac- 
cepts the  situation  philosophically  and  goes  to 
sleep  on  a  high  ledge  of  rock  with  water  per- 
haps in  his  thought  but  not  in  his  crop. 

Thanks  to  his  capacity  for  travelling,  the 
quail  usually  manages  to  get  enough  of  small 
seeds  and  insects  to  keep  himself  alive.  He  is 
a  great  roamer — in  the  course  of  a  day  travel- 
ling over  many  miles  of  country — and  his  quest 
is  always  food.  He  likes  to  be  among  the  great 
bowlders  that  lie  along  the  bases  of  the  moun- 
tains ;  and  when  disturbed  he  flies  and  jumps 
from  rock  to  rock,  much  to  the  discouragement 
of  the  coyote  that  happens  to  be  the  disturber. 
When  forced  to  rise  he  flies  perhaps  for  a  hun- 
dred yards  or  more  and  then  drops  and  begins 
running.  In  the  spring  he  mates,  raises  a 
brood,  and  teaches  the  young  ones  the  gentle 
art  of  running.     In  the  fall  he  and  his  family 


186 


THE  DESERT 


His  strong 
legs. 


Btuh-birds. 


of  a  dozen  or  sixteen  join  with  other  families 
to  make  a  great  covey  of  several  hundred,  or  in 
the  old  days  before  the  market-hunters  came, 
several  thousand.  And  they  all  run.  The 
bottom  of  the  quaiFs  foot  is  always  itching  for 
the  ground  ;  and  he  seems  never  so  happy  as 
when  leaving  the  enemy  far  behind  him.  His 
little  legs  take  him  through  the  brush  so  fast 
that  you  cannot  keep  up  with  him.  Every 
muscle  in  him  is  as  tough  as  a  watch-spring. 
You  may  wound  him,  but  you  have  not  yet  got 
him.  He  will  creep  into  some  cactus  patch  or 
crawl  down  a  snake-hole — elude  you  in  some 
way — and  in  the  end  die  game  just  out  of  your 
reach. 

There  are  few  trees  upon  the  desert  and  few 
bushes  of  any  size  ;  yet  there  are  birds  of  the 
tree  and  the  bush  here  just  as  there  are  birds 
of  the  air  and  the  ground.  The  most  of  them 
seem  the  same  kind  of  linnets,  sparrows,  and 
thrushes  that  are  seen  along  the  California 
coast ;  though  probably  they  have  some  peculiar 
desert  characteristic.  I  cannot  see  any  differ- 
ence between  the  little  woodpeckers  here  and 
the  woodpeckers  elsewhere ;  yet  this  desert  va- 
riety flies  from  sahuaro  to  sahuaro,  alights  on 
the  spiny  trunk  with  a  little  thump,  and  im- 


WINGED  LIFE 


187 


mediately  begins  hitching  himself  up  through 
the  worst  imaginable  rows  of  needles  just  as 
though  he  were  climbing  a  plain  pine-tree. 
The  ordinary  turtle-dove  with  his  red  pigeon- 
feet  alights  on  the  top  of  the  same  sahuaro, 
the  wren  bores  holes  in  it  and  makes  a  nest 
within  the  cylinder  j  and  the  dwarf  thrush 
dashes  in  and  out  of  tangled  thickets  of  cholla 
all  day  long,  and  yet  none  of  them  suffers  any 
injury.  It  seems  incredible  that  birds  not  ac- 
customed to  the  desert  could  do  such  things. 

Possibly,  too,  these  bush-birds  —  insect-de- 
vourers  most  of  them — have  some  special  faculty 
for  catching  their  prey,  though  I  have  not  been 
able  to  discover  it.  The  fly-catchers,  the  mock- 
ing-birds, the  finches,  in  a  land  of  plenty  are 
quick  enough  in  breaking  the  back  of  a  butter- 
fly or  beetle,  and  any  extra  energy  would  seem 
superfluous.  Still  there  is  no  telling  what  fine 
extra  stimulus  lies  in  an  empty  crop. -And 
crops  are  usually  empty  on  the  desert.  Even 
the  little  humming-bird  has  difficulty  in  pick- 
ing a  living.  In  blossom  time  he  is,  of  course, 
in  fine  condition,  but  I  have  seen  him  dashing 
about  in  the  fall  when  nothing  at  all  was  in 
bloom,  and  evidently  none  the  worse  for  some 
starvation.     He  is  a  swifter  flyer  than  the  or- 


The  wood- 
peckers and 
cactus. 


Finclies  and 
mocking- 
birds. 


The  hum- 
ming-bird. 


188 


THE  DESERT 


Doves  and 
grosbeaks. 


The  lark 
and  flicker. 


dinary  bird  and  is  also  duller  in  coloring,  but 
in  other  respects  he  seems  not  different.  He 
breeds  on  the  desert,  building  his  nest  in  the 
pitahaya ;  and  he  and  his  mate  then  have  a 
standing  quarrel  with  their  neighbors  for  the 
rest  of  the  summer.  There  is  not  in  the  whole 
feathered  tribe  a  more  quarrelsome  scrap  of 
vivacity  than  the  humming-bird. 

The  dwarf  dove  common  to  Sonora,  the 
oven-bird,  the  red  grosbeak,  and  many  other 
of  the  smaller  birds  known  to  civilization,  are 
found  on  the  desert ;  but  apparently  with  no 
special  faculty  for  overcoming  its  hardships. 
This  is  due  perhaps  to  the  fact  that  they  are 
not  always  there  —  are  not  exclusively  desert 
birds.  Nor  do  any  of  the  migratory  birds  be- 
long to  the  desert,  though  they  stop  here  for 
weeks  at  a  time  in  their  flights  north  or  south. 
At  almost  any  season  of  the  year  one  sees  the 
cow-blackbird  and  the  smaller  crow-blackbird. 
The  mocking-bird  comes  only  in  the  spring 
and  fall,  and  the  lark  in  early  summer.  The 
lark  looks  precisely  like  the  Eastern  bird,  but 
his  note  is  changed ;  whereas  the  flicker  has 
changed  the  color  under  his  wings  from  yel- 
low to  pink,  but  not  his  note.  The  robin  is 
no  whit  different  from  the  front-lawn  robin  of 


WINGED  LIFE 


189 


onr  childhood ;  and  the  bobolink  rising  from 
salt-bush  and  yucca,  singing  as  he  rises,  is  the 
bobolink  of  ancient  days.  At  times  there  are 
troops  of  magpies  that  come  and  go  across  the 
waste,  and  at  other  times  troops  of  blue-jays. 
And  high  in  air  through  the  warmth  of  spring 
and  the  cold  of  autumn  there  are  great  flocks 
of  ducks,  geese,  brant,  divers,  shags,  willet, 
curlew,  swinging  along  silently  to  the  southern 
or  northern  waterways.  They  seldom  pause, 
even  when  following  the  Colorado  River,  unless 
in  need  of  water.  On  the  mesas  and  uplands 
one  sometimes  sees  a  group  of  sand-hill  cranes 
walking  about  and  indulging  in  a  crazy  dance 
peculiarly  their  own,  but  the  sight  is  no  lon- 
ger a  common  one. 

And  again  the  prey — what  of  the  prey  ?  Has 
Nature  left  the  beetles,  the  bugs,  the  worms, 
the  bees,  completely  at  the  pleasure  of  the  bird^s 
beak  ?  No ;  not  completely,  though  it  must 
be  acknowledged  that  she  has  not  provided 
much  defensive  armor  for  them  individually. 
She  incases  her  beautiful  blue  and  yellow 
beetles  in  hard  shells  that  other  insects  cannot 
break  through,  but  they  are  flimsy  defences 
against  the  mocking-bird.  To  bugs  and  worms 
and   bees   she   gives   perhaps  a  sting,  deadly 


190 


THE   DESERT 


Fighting 
destruction 
by  breed. 


The  blue 
and  green 
beetles. 


enongh  when  thrust  into  a  spider,  but  useless 
again  when  used  in  defence  against  a  cactus- 
thrush.  And  this  is  where  Nature  shows  her 
absolute  indifference  to  the  life  or  the  death  of 
the  individual.  She  allows  the  bugs  and  beetles 
to  be  slaughtered  like  the  mackerel  in  the  sea. 
But  she  is  a  little  more  careful  about  preserving 
the  species.  And  how  does  she  do  this  without 
preserving  the  individual  ?  Why,  simply  by 
increasing  the  number  of  individuals,  by  breed, 
by  fertility,  by  multiplicity.  Thousands  are 
annually  slaughtered  ;  yes,  but  thousands  are 
annually  bred.  What  matter  about  their  lives 
or  deaths  provided  they  do  not  increase  or  de- 
crease as  a  species  I 

The  insects  on  the  desert  are  mere  flashes  of 
life — pin-points  of  energy — but  not  without  pur- 
pose and  not  without  beauty.  The  beasts  and 
the  birds  may  be  bleached  brown  or  gray  by  the 
sun  ;  but  the  insects  are  many  of  them  as  gay 
as  those  of  the  tropics.  The  ordinary  beetles 
that  a  chance  turn  of  a  stone  reveals  are  like 
scarabs  of  gold,  turquoise,  azurite,  bronze, 
platinum,  hurrying  and  scurrying  out  of  the 
way.  The  tarantula-wasp,  with  his  gorgeous 
orange-colored  body  and  his  blue  wings,  is  like  a 
bauble  made  of  precious  stones  flickering  along 


WINGED   LIFE 


191 


the  ground.  The  great  dragon-fly  with  his 
many-lensed  eyes,  the  bees  with  black  and  yel- 
low bodies,  the  butterflies  with  bright-hued 
wings,  the  white  and  gray  millers — all  of  them 
dwellers  in  the  sands — are  spots  of  light  and 
color  that  illumine  the  desert  as  the  rich  jewel 
the  Ethiop's  ear.  The  wings  of  gauze  that 
bear  the  ordinary  fly  upon  the  air,  the  feet  of 
ebony  that  carry  the  plain  black  beetle  along  the 
rocks,  are  made  with  just  as  much  care  and  skill 
as  the  wings  of  the  condor  and  the  foot  of  the 
road-runner.  Nature  in  every  product  of  her 
hand  shows  the  completeness  of  her  workman- 
ship. She  made  the  wings  and  the  legs  for  a 
purpose  and  they  fulfil  that  purpose.  They 
are  without  flaw  and  above  reproach.  Once 
more,  therefore,  have  they  character  and  fitness, 
and  once  more,  therefore,  are  they  beautiful. 

I  need  not  now  argue  beauty  in  the  birds, 
the  beetles,  and  the  butterflies.  You  will  admit 
it  without  argument.  The  slate-blue  of  the 
quail,  the  gay  red  of  the  grosbeak,  the  charm 
of  the  rock-wren,  the  vivacity  of  the  bobolink  or 
the  scale-runner,  captivate  you  and  compel  your 
sympathy  and  admiration.  Yes  ;  but  everyone 
of  them  is,  after  his  kind,  as  much  of  a  butcher, 
just  as  much  of  a  destroyer,  as  the  wild  cat  or 


Butterflies* 


192 


THE   DESERT 


the  yellow  rattlesnake.  And  they  have  no  more 
character  and  perhaps  less  fitness  for  the  desert 
life  than  the  sneaking  coyote  or  the  flattened 
lizard  which  you  do  not  admire.  Bat  why  are 
not  the  coyote  and  the  lizard  beautiful  too  ? 
Why  not  the  beauty  of  the  horned  toad  and  the 
serpent  ?  Are  we  never  to  love  or  to  admire 
save  where  form  and  color  tickle  the  eye  ?  Are 
these  forever  to  monopolize  the  name  of  beauty 
and  gather  to  themselves  the  world's  applause  ? 
If  we  could  but  rid  ourselves  of  the  false  ideas, 
which,  taken  en  masses  are  called  education,  we 
should  know  that  there  is  nothing  ugly  under 
the  sun,  save  that  which  comes  from  human 
distortion.  Nature's  work  is  all  of  it  good,  all 
of  it  purposeful,  all  of  it  wonderful,  all  of  it 
beautiful.  We  like  or  dislike  certain  things 
which  maybe  a  way  of  expressing  our  prejudice 
or  our  limitation  ;  but  the  work  is  always  per- 
fect of  its  kind  irrespective  of  human  appreci- 
ation. We  may  prefer  the  sunlight  to  the  star- 
light, the  evening  primrose  to  the  bisnaga,  the 
antelope  to  the  mountain  lion,  the  mocking-bird 
to  the  lizard  ;  but  to  say  that  one  is  good  and 
the  other  bad,  that  one  is  beautiful  and  the  other 
ugly,  is  to  accuse  Nature  herself  of  preference— 
Something  which  she  never  knew.    She  designs 


WINGED   LIFE 


193 


for  the  cactus  of  the  desert  as  skilfully  and  as 
faithfully  as  for  the  lily  of  the  garden.  Each 
in  its  way  is  suited  to  its  place,  and  each  in  its 
way  has  its  unique  beauty  of  character.  And 
so,  more  truly  perhaps  than  Shakespeare  him- 
self knew,  the  toad  called  ugly  and  venomous, 
still  holds  a  precious  jewel  in  its  head. 


Precwus 
jewel  of  the 
toad. 


Flat  steps  0/ 
the  desert. 


Aeron 

Southern 
Arizona. 


CHAPTER  XI 
MESAS  AND  FOOT-HILLS 

The  word  mesa  (table),  by  local  usage  in 
Mexico  and  in  the  western  United  States,  is 
applied  to  any  flat  tract  of  ground  that  lies 
above  an  arroyo  or  valley,  as  well  as  to  the  flat 
top  of  a  mountain.  In  a  broad,  if  somewhat 
strained  use  of  the  word,  it  also  means  the 
great  table-lands  and  elevated  plains  lying  be- 
tween a  river- valley  and  the  mountain  confines 
on  either  side  of  it.  The  mesas  are  the  steps 
or  benches  that  lead  upward  from  the  river 
to  the  mountain,  though  the  resemblance  to 
benches  is  not  always  apparent  because  of  the 
cuttings  and  washings  of  intermittent  streams, 
and  the  breakings  and  crossings  of  mountain- 
spurs. 

As  you  rise  up  from  the  Colorado  Desert, 
crossing  the  river  to  the  east,  you  meet  with  a 
great  plain  or  so-called  mesa  that  extends  far 
across  Southern  Arizona  and  Sonora  almost  up 
to  the  Continental  Divide.  It  is  broken  by 
194 


MESAS  AND  FOOT-HILLS 


196 


short  ranges  of  barren  mountains,  that  have 
the  general  trend  of  the  main  Sierra  Madre, 
and  it  looks  so  much  like  the  country  to  the 
west  of  the  river  that  it  is  usually  recognized 
as  a  part  of  the  desert,  or  at  the  least  "  desert 
country/' 

It  is,  however,  somewhat  different  from  the 
Bottom  of  the  Bowl  or  even  the  valleys  of  the 
Mojave.  The  elevation,  for  one  thing,  gives  it 
another  character.  The  rise  from  bench  to 
bench  is  very  gradual,  and  to  the  ordinary  ob- 
server hardly  perceptible ;  but  nevertheless  when 
the  foot-hills  of  the  Santa  Kita  Mountains  are 
reached,  the  altitude  is  four  thousand  feet  or 
more.  There  is  a  difference  in  light,  sky, 
color,  air ;  even  some  change  in  the  surface  of 
the  earth.  The  fine  sands  of  the  lower  desert 
and  the  sea-bed  silts  are  missing  ;  the  mesas  lie 
close  up  to  the  mountains  and  receive  the  first 
coarse  wash  from  the  sides ;  the  barrancas  on 
the  mountain  -  sides  are  choked  with  great 
masses  of  fallen  rock,  with  bowlders  of  granite, 
with  blocks  of  blackened  lava.  The  arroyos 
that  carry  the  wash  from  the  mountains — mere 
ditches  and  trenches  cut  through  the  mesas — 
are  filled  with  rounded  stones,  coarse  sands, 
glittering  scales  of  mica,  bits  of  quartz,  breaks 


Rising  up 
from  th» 
desert. 


The  great 
mesas. 


196 


THE  DESERT 


of  agate  and  carnelian.  The  mesas  themselves 
are  made  up  of  sand  and  gravel,  sometimes 
long  shelvings  of  horizontal  rocks,  sometimes 
patches  of  terra-cotta,  rifts  of  copper  shale, 
or  beds  of  parti-colored  clay. 

There  is  more  rain  in  this  upland  country 
and  consequently  more  vegetation  than  down 
below.  Grease-wood  grows  everywhere  and  is 
the  principal  green  thing  in  sight.  So  pre- 
dominant is  it  that  the  term  *' grease-wood 
plains"  is  not  inappropriate  to  the  whole  re- 
gion. Groves  of  sahuaro  stand  in  the  valleys 
and  reach  up  and  over  the  mountain-tops, 
chollas  and  nopals  are  on  the  flats ;  the  mes- 
quite  grows  in  miniature  forests.  But  besides 
these  there  are  bushes  and  trees  not  seen  in  the 
basin.  Palo  fierro,  palo  bianco,  cottonwood 
live  along  the  dry  river-beds,  white  and  black 
sage  on  the  mesas,  white  and  black  oaks  in  the 
foot-hills.  Then,  too,  there  are  patches  of  pale 
yellow  sun-dried  grass  covering  many  acres, 
great  beds  of  evening  primrose,  and  fields  cov- 
ered with  the  purple  salt-bush.  It  is  quite  an- 
other country  when  you  come  to  examine  it 
piece  by  piece. 

As  you  rise  higher  and  higher  to  the  Conti- 
nental Divide  the  whole  face  of  the  mesa  under- 


MESAS  AND  FOOT-HILLS 


197 


goes  a  further  change.  It  slips  imperceptibly 
into  a  grass  plain,  stretching  flat  as  far  as  the 
eye  can  see,  covered  with  whitened  grass,  and 
marked  by  clumps  of  yuccas  slowly  growing 
into  yucca  palms.  No  rocks,  trees,  cacti,  or 
grease-wood ;  no  primrose,  wild  gourd,  or  ver- 
bena. Nothing  but  yucca  palms,  bleached 
grass,  blue  sky,  and  lilac  mountains.  It  is  still 
in  kind  a  desert  country,  and  it  is  still  called  a 
mesa  or  table-land  ;  but  its  character  is  changed 
into  something  like  the  great  flat  lands  of  Ne- 
braska or  the  broken  plateau  country  of  Mon- 
tana. 

In  the  spring,  when  the  snows  have  melted 
and  the  rains  have  fallen,  these  plains  turn 
green  with  young  grass  and  are  spattered  with 
great  patches  of  wild  flowers ;  but  the  drouth 
and  heat  of  early  summer  soon  fade  the  grasses 
to  a  bright  yellow,  and  in  the  fall  the  yellow 
bleaches  to  a  dead  white.  There  is  little  wild 
life  left  upon  these  plains.  The  bush-birds 
need  more  cover  than  is  to  be  found  here,  while 
the  ground-birds  need  more  open  roadway. 
In  the  spring,  when  the  prairie  pools  are  filled 
with  water,  there  are  geese  and  cranes  in  abun- 
dance ;  but  they  soon  pass  on  north.  These 
great  grass  tracts  were  once  the  home  of  count- 


Orass 
plains. 


Spring  and 
summer  on 
the  plains. 


198 


THE    DESERT 


Home  of  the 
antelope. 


Beds  of 
soda  and 
gypsum. 


Riding  i»ito 
the  unex- 
pected. 


less  bands  of  antelope,  for  it  is  just  such  an 
open  country  as  the  antelope  loves ;  but  they 
have  passed  on,  too.  In  their  place  roam 
herds  of  cattle,  and  the  gray  wolf,  the  coyote, 
and  the  buzzard  follow  the  herds. 

The  grease-wood  and  the  grass  plains  of  Ari- 
zona and  New  Mexico  are  typical  of  all  the  flat 
countries  lying  up  from  the  deserts ;  and  yet 
there  are  many  tracts  of  small  acreage  in  this 
same  region  that  show  distinctly  different  feat- 
ures. Sometimes  there  are  small  beds  of  flat 
alkali  dust,  sometimes  beds  of  soda  and  gypsum, 
sometimes  beds  of  salt.  Then  occasionally  there 
is  a  broad  plain  sown  broadcast  far  and  wide 
with  blocks  of  lava — the  remnants  of  a  great 
lava-stream  sent  forth  many  centuries  ago  ;  and 
again  flat  reaches  strewn  thick  with  blocks  of 
porphyry  that  have  been  washed  down  from  the 
mountains  no  one  knows  just  when  or  how. 
You  are  always  riding  into  the  unexpected  in 
these  barren  countries,  stumbling  upon  strange 
phenomena,  seeing  strange  sights. 

And  yet  as  you  ascend  from  the  valley  of  the 
Colorado  moving  to  the  northeast,  the  lands 
and  the  sights  become  even  stranger.  For  now 
you  are  rising  to  the  Great  Plateau  and  the 
Grand  Canyon  country — the  region  of  the  butte. 


MESAS  AND   FOOT-HILLS 


199 


the  vast  escarpment,  the  dome,  the  cliff,  the 
gorge.  It  is  a  more  mountainous  land  than 
that  lying  to  the  south,  and  it  is  deeper  cut 
with  river-beds  and  canyons.  Yet  still  you 
have  no  trouble  in  finding  even  here  the  flat 
spaces  peculiar  to  all  the  desert-bordering  ter- 
ritory. There  are  grease-wood  plains  as  at  the 
south  and  gi'eat  bare  benches  that  seem  endless 
in  their  sweep.  There  are,  too,  spaces  covered 
with  lava-blocks  and  beds  of  soda  and  salt. 
More  rain  falls  here  than  at  the  south  or  west ; 
and  in  certain  sections  the  grass  grows  rank,  the 
yuccas  become  trees,  and  higher  up  toward  Ash 
Fork  the  hills  are  covered  with  a  growth  of  juni- 
per. Flowers  and  shrubs  are  more  abundant, 
birds  and  animals  come  and  go  across  your  path- 
way, and  there  are  green  valleys  with  water 
running  upon  the  surface  of  the  ground.  And 
yet  not  twenty  miles  from  the  green  valley  you 
may  enter  upon  the  most  barren  plain  imagi- 
nable— a  place  like  the  Painted  Desert,  perhaps, 
where  in  spots  not  a  living  thing  of  any  kind  is 
seen,  where  there  is  nothing  but  dry  rock  in  the 
mountains  and  dry  dust  in  the  valley.  These 
areas  of  utter  desolation  are  of  frequent  enough 
occurrence  in  all  the  regions  lying  immediately 
to  the  north  and  the  east  of  the  Mojave  to  re- 


The  Orand 

Canyon 

country. 


mils 

covered  with 
juniper. 


The  Painted 
Desert. 


200 


THE  DESERT 


mind  you  that  yon  are  still  in  a  desert  land,  and 
that  the  bench  and  the  arid  plain  are  really  a 
part  of  the  great  waste  itself. 

Nature  never  designed  more  fascinating  coun- 
try to  ride  over  than  these  plains  and  mesas 
lying  up  and  back  from  the  desert  basin.  You 
may  be  alone  without  necessarily  being  lone- 
some. And  everyone  rides  here  with  the  feel- 
ing that  he  is  the  first  one  that  ever  broke  into 
this  unknown  land,  that  he  is  the  original  dis- 
coverer; and  that  this  new  world  belongs  to 
him  by  right  of  original  exploration  and  con- 
quest. Life  becomes  simplified  from  necessity. 
It  begins  all  over  again,  starting  at  the  primitive 
stage.  There  is  a  reversion  to  the  savage.  Civ- 
ilization, the  race,  history,  philosophy,  art — 
how  very  far  away  and  how  very  useless,  even 
contemptible,  they  seem.  What  have  they  to  do 
with  the  air  and  the  sunlight  and  the  vastness  of 
the  plateau  !  Nature  and  her  gift  of  buoyant  life 
are  overpowering.  The  joy  of  mere  animal  ex- 
istence, the  feeling  that  it  is  good  to  be  alive 
and  face  to  face  with  Nature's  self,  drives  every- 
thing else  into  the  background. 

And  what  air  one  breathes  on  these  plains — 
what  wonderful  air  !  It  is  exhilarating  to  the 
whole  body  ;  it  brightens  the  senses  and  sweet- 


MESAS  AND  FOOT-HILLS 


201 


ens  the  mind  and  quiets  the  nerves.  And  how 
clear  it  is  !  Leagues  away  needle  and  spine  and 
mountain-ridge  still  come  out  clear  cut  against 
the  sky.  Is  it  the  air  alone  that  makes  possible 
such  far-away  visions,  or  has  the  light  somewhat 
to  do  with  it  ?  What  penetrating,  all-pervad- 
ing, wide-spread  light !  How  silently  it  falls 
and  how  like  a  great  mirror  the  plain  reflects  it 
back  to  heaven  ! 

Light  and  air — what  means  wherewith  to 
conjure  up  illusions  and  deceive  the  senses  ! 
We  think  we  see  far  away  a  range  of  low  hills, 
but,  as  we  ride  on,  buttes  and  lomas  seem  to 
detach  and  come  toward  us.  There  is  no  range 
ahead  of  us  ;  there  are  only  scattered  groups  of 
hills  many  miles  apart.  Far  away  to  the  left 
on  a  little  rise  of  ground  is  a  wild  horse  watch- 
ing us,  his  head  high  in  air,  his  nostrils  sniffing 
for  our  scent  upon  the  breeze.  How  colossal  he 
seems  !  Doubtless  he  is  the  last  of  some  upland 
band,  the  leader  of  the  troop  who  through  great 
size  and  strength  was  best  fitted  to  survive. 
But  no  ;  he  is  only  a  common  little  Indian 
pony  distorted  to  huge  proportions  by  the  heat- 
ed atmosphere.  We  are  riding  into  the  sunset. 
Ahead  of  us  every  notch  in  the  hills,  every  little 
valley  has  a  shaft  of  golden  light  streaming 


202 


THE  DESERT 


through  it.  But  turn  in  your  saddle  and  look 
to  the  east,  and  the  hills  we  have  left  behind 
us  are  surrounded  by  veilings  of  lilac.  Again 
the  omnipresent  desert  air !  We  see  the 
western  hills  as  through  an  amber  glass,  but 
looking  to  the  east  the  glass  is  changed  to  pale 
amethyst. 

How  delicately  beautiful  are  the  hills  that 
seem  to  gather  in  little  groups  along  the  waste  ! 
They  are  not  sharp-edged  in  their  ridges  like 
the  higher  mountains*  Wind,  rain,  and  sand 
have  done  their  work  upon  them  until  there  is 
hardly  a  rough  feature  left  to  them.  All  their 
lines  are  smooth  and  flow  from  one  into  another  ; 
and  all  the  parti-colors  of  their  rocks  and  soils 
are  blended  into  one  tone  by  the  light  and  the 
air.  With  surfaces  that  catch  and  reflect  light, 
and  little  depressions  that  hold  shadows,  how 
very  picturesque  they  are  !  Indeed  as  you 
watch  them  breaking  the  horizon-line  you  are 
surprised  to  see  how  easily  they  compose  into 
pictures.  If  you  tried  to  put  them  upon  can- 
vas your  surprise  would  probably  be  greater  to 
find  how  very  little  you  could  make  of  them. 
The  desert  is  not  more  pain  table  than  the  Alps. 
Both  are  too  big. 

These  hills — they  are  usually  called  lomas — 


MESAS  AND   FOOT-HILLS 


203 


that  one  meets  with  in  the  plateau  region  are 
not  of  the  same  make-up  as  the  clay  buttes  of 
"Wyoming  or  the  gravel  hills  of  New  England. 
They  have  a  core  of  rock  within  them  and  are 
nothing  less  than  washed-down  foot-hills.  You 
will  often  see  a  chain  of  them  receding  from  the 
range  toward  the  plain,  and  growing  smaller  as 
they  recede,  until  the  last  one  is  a  mound  only 
a  few  feet  in  height.  They  are  flattening  down 
to  the  level  of  the  plain — sinking  into  the 
sandy  sea. 

Usually  the  lomas  are  seen  against  a  back- 
ground of  dark  mountains  of  which  they  are 
or  have  been  at  one  time  a  constituent  part. 
For  the  lomas  are  the  outliers  from  the  foot- 
hills as  the  foot-hills  from  the  mountains  proper. 
They  are  the  most  worn  because  they  are  the 
lowest  down  in  the  valley — in  fact  the  bottom 
steps  which  receive  not  only  their  own  wash  but 
that  of  all  the  other  steps  besides.  The  moun- 
tains pour  their  waters  and  loose  stones  upon 
the  foot-hills,  the  foot-hills  cast  them  off  upon 
the  lomas,  and  the  lomas  in  turn  thrust  them 
upon  the  plains.  But  the  casting  off  effort  be- 
comes weaker  at  each  step  as  the  sides  of  the 
hill  become  less  of  a  declivity.  When  the  little 
hill  is  reached  the  sand-wash  settles  about  the 


Worn-down 
mountains. 


The  moun- 
tain-wash 
and  its 
effect. 


204 


THE  DESERT 


Flattenina 
down  to  the 
plain. 


base,  and  in  time  the  whole  mass  rises  on  its 
sides  and  sinks  somewhat  in  the  centre,  until 
a  mere  rise  of  ground  is  all  that  remains.  So 
perish  the  hills  that  we  are  accustomed  to  speak 
of  as  "  everlasting."  It  is  merely  another  illus- 
tration of  Nature's  method  in  the  universe. 
She  is  as  careless  of  the  individual  hill  or  moun- 
tain as  of  the  individual  man,  animal,  or  flower. 
All  are  beaten  into  dust.  But  the  species  is 
more  enduring,  better  preserved.  Year  by  year 
Nature  is  tearing  down,  washing  down,  pulling 
to  pieces  range  after  range  ;  but  year  by  year 
she  is  also  heaving  up  stupendous  mountains 
like  the  Alps,  and  crackling  with  a  mighty 
squeeze  the  earth's  crust  into  the  ridges  of  the 
Rockies  and  the  Andes. 

The  foot-hills  are  just  what  their  name  indi- 
cates— the  hills  that  lie  at  the  foot  of  the  moun- 
tains. They  are  not  usually  detached  from  the 
main  range  like  so  many  of  the  lomas,  but  are  a 
part  of  it ;  and  while  not  exactly  the  buttresses 
of  the  mountains,  yet  they  remind  one  of  those 
architectural  supports  of  cathedral  walls.  The 
foot-hills  themselves  are  perhaps  as  firmly  sup- 
ported as  the  mountains  for  very  often  they 
stretch  down  from   the   mountains  in  a  long 


Mountain- 
making. 


The 
/oot-hiOt. 


ridge  like  a  spine,  and   from  the  spine  are 


MESAS  AND   FOOT-HILLS 


205 


thrown  out  supporting  ribs  that  trail  away  into 
the  yalleys.  In  a  granite  country  these  foot- 
hills are  usually  very  smooth,  and  are  made  up 
largely,  as  regards  their  surfaces,  of  the  grit  and 
grind  of  the  rocks.  The  rocks  themselves  are 
usually  wind-worn,  rounded  by  rain  and  sand, 
and  sometimes  fantastic  in  shape.  Often  the 
soft  granite  wears  through  in  seams  and  leaves 
lozenge-like  blocks  linked  together  like  beads 
upon  a  string  ;  often  the  whole  rock-crown  of 
the  hill  is  honey-combed  by  the  wind  until  it 
looks  as  soft  as  a  sponge.  The  foot-hills  of 
porphyry  are  more  jagged  and  rough  in  every 
way.  The  stone  is  much  harder  and  while  it 
splits  like  granite  and  falls  along  the  mountain- 
side in  a  talus  it  does  not  readily  disintegrate. 
The  last  bit  of  it  remains  a  hard  kernel,  and 
the  porphyry  foot-hill  is  usually  a  keen-edged 
mountain  in  miniature. 

The  hills  have  a  desert  vegetation  of  grease- 
wood,  cactus,  and  sage,  with  occasional  trees  like 
the  palo  verde  and  the  lluvia  d'oro  ;  but  their 
general  appearance  is  not  very  different  from 
the  mesas.  Where  the  altitude  is  high — say 
five  thousand  feet  and  over — there  may  be  a 
more  radical  change  in  vegetation  ;  for  now  the 
oak  begins  to  appear,  and  if  it  is  open  country 


Forms  of 

thejootr 

hiUa. 


MminUdii' 
plants. 


206 


THE  DESERT 


Bare 
nwuntains. 


811  n  them 
exposures. 


the  grasses  and  flowers  show  everywhere.  Some- 
times the  foot-hills  are  covered  with  a  dense 
chaparral  made  up  of  many  low  trees  and 
bushes ;  but  this  growth  is  more  peculiar  to 
the  Californian  hills  west  of  the  Coast  Range 
than  to  Arizona.  Many  of  the  ranges  in  the 
Canyon  country  are  almost  as  bare  of  vegeta- 
tion as  an  ancient  lake-bed.  And  sometimes 
altitude  seems  to  have  little  to  do  with  the 
kinds  of  growths.  Cacti  and  the  salt-bush 
flourish  at  six  thousand  feet  as  readily  as  down 
in  the  Salton  Basin  three  hundred  feet  below 
sea-level.  The  most  dangerous  and  difficult 
thing  to  set  up  about  anything  in  this  desert 
world  is  the  general  law  or  common  rule.  The 
exception — the  thing  that  is  perhaps  uncom- 
mon— comes  up  at  every  turn  to  your  un- 
doing. 

Even  the  mountains  of  Arizona  that  have  an 
elevation  of  from  five  to  eight  thousand  feet 
are  often  quite  bare  of  timber.  The  sahuaro, 
the  nopal,  the  palo  verde  may  grow  to  their 
very  peaks  and  still  make  only  a  scanty  cover- 
ing. Seen  from  a  distance  the  southern  ex- 
posure of  the  mountain  looks  perfectly  bare ; 
but  if  you  travel  around  it  to  the  north  side 
where  the  sunlight  does  not  fall  except  for  a 


MESAS   AND  FOOT-HILLS 


207 


few  hours  of  the  day,  you  will  find  a  growth  of 
bushes,  small  trees,  vines,  and  grasses  that,  tak- 
en together,  form  something  of  a  thicket — that 
is  for  a  desert.  And  here,  too,  on  the  northern 
exposure  you  will  find  the  abrupt  walls  of  the 
peak  stained  with  great  fields  of  orange  and 
gray  lichens  that  lend  a  color  quality  to  the 
whole  top. 

But  through  the  bushes  and  grasses  and 
lichens  the  wine-red  of  the  porphyry  comes 
cropping  out  to  tell  you  that  the  mountain  is  a 
mass  of  rock,  that  it  holds  little  or  no  soil  on 
its  sides,  that  it  has  not  a  suspicion  of  water ; 
and  that  whatever  grows  upon  it,  does  so,  not 
by  favor  of  circumstance,  but  through  sheer 
desert  stubbornness.  The  vegetation  is  a  thin 
disguise  that  is  penetrated  in  a  few  moments. 
The  arid  character  of  the  mountain  says  plainly 
enough  that  we  are  not  yet  out  of  the  region 
of  sands  and  burning  winds  and  fiery  sun-shafts. 
The  whole  of  the  Arizona  country  as  far  east 
as  the  Continental  Divide,  in  spite  of  its  occa- 
sional green  valleys  and  few  high  mountain- 
ranges  with  timbered  tops,  is  a  slope  leading 
up  and  out  from  the  desert  by  gradual  if  broken 
steps  which  we  have  called  mesas  or  benches. 
It  is  a  bare,  dry  land.     Its  name  would  imply 


Oray 
lichens. 


Still  in  the 

desert 

region. 


208 


THE   DESERT 


Arida  zona. 


Cloud- 
bursts on 
themesM. 


The  wash  of 
rains. 


that  the  early  Spaniards  had  found  it  that  and 
called  it  arida  zona  for  cause.* 

Yet  at  times  it  is  a  land  of  heavy  cloud-bursts 
and  wash-outs.  In  the  summer  months  it  fre- 
quently rains  on  the  mesas  in  ton-en ts.  The 
bare  surface  of  the  country  drains  this  water  al- 
most like  the  roof  of  a  house  because  there  are 
no  grasses  or  bushes  of  consequence  to  check 
the  water  and  allow  it  to  soak  into  the  ground. 
The  descent  from  the  Divide  to  the  Colorado 
River  is  quite  steep.  The  flood  of  waters  rushes 
down  the  steps  of  the  mesas  and  over  the  bare 
ground  with  terrific  force.  It  quickly  cuts 
channels  in  the  low  places  down  which  are 
hurled  sand,  gravel,  and  bowlders.  The  cutting 
of  the  channel  during  the  heavy  rains  is  some- 
thing extraordinary,  partly  because  the  stream 
has  great  volume  and  fall,  and  partly  because 
the  channel-bed  is  usually  of  soft  rock  and  easily 
cut.  In  a  few  dozen  years  the  arroyo  of  a  mesa 
that  carries  off  the  water  from  the  mountain- 
range  has  cut  a  river-bed  many  feet  deep  ;  in  a 

*  The  late  Dr.  Elliot  Coues  and  others  reject  the  obvi- 
ous arida  zona  of  the  Spanish  in  favor  of  some  strained 
etymologies  from  the  Indian  dialects,  about  which  no  two 
of  them  agree.  "Why  should  the  name  not  have  come 
from  the  Spanish,  and  why  should  it  not  mean  just  sim- 
ply arid  zone  or  belt  ? 


MESAS  AND   FOOT-HILLS 


209 


few  hundred  years  the  valley-bed  changes  into 
a  gorge  with  five  hundred  feet  of  sheer  rock- 
wall  ;  in  a  few  thousand  years  perhaps  the  rest- 
less wearing  water  of  the  great  river  has  sunk 
its  bed  five  thousand  feet  below  the  surface  and 
made  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado. 

The  Canyon  country  is  well  named,  for  it  has 
plenty  of  wash-outs  and  gorges.  Almost  any- 
where among  the  mountain-ranges  you  can  find 
them — not  Grand  Canyons,  to  be  sure,  but  ones 
of  size  sufficient  to  be  impressive  without  being 
stupendous.  Walls  of  upright  rock  several  hun- 
dred feet  in  height  have  enough  bulk  and  body 
about  them  to  impress  anyone.  The  mass  is 
really  overpowering.  It  is  but  the  crust  of 
the  earth  exposed  to  view  ;  but  the  gorge  at  Ni- 
agara and  the  looming  shaft  of  the  Matterhorn 
are  not  more.  The  imagination  strains  at  such 
magnitude.  And  all  the  accessories  of  the 
gorge  and  canyon  have  a  might  to  them  that 
adds  to  the  general  effect.  The  sheer  precipices, 
the  leaning  towers,  the  pinnacles  and  shafts,  the 
recesses  and  caves,  the  huge  basins  rounded 
out  of  rock  by  the  waterfalls  are  all  touched 
by  the  majesty  of  the  sublime. 

And  what  could  be  more  beautiful  than  the 
deep  shadow  of  the  canyon  !    You  may  have 


Oorge 
cutting. 


In  the 
canyons. 


Upright 
waUa  of 
rock. 


210 


THE   DESERT 


Color  in 

canyon 

shadows. 


The  blue  sky 
seen  from 
the  canyon 
depth*. 


had  doubts  about  those  colored  shadows  which 
painters  of  the  plein-air  school  talked  so  much 
about  a  few  years  ago.  You  may  have  thought 
that  it  was  all  talk  and  no  reality  ;  but  now  that 
you  are  in  the  canyon,  and  in  a  shadow,  look 
about  you  and  see  if  there  is  not  plenty  of  color 
there,  too.  The  walls  are  dyed  with  it,  the 
stones  are  stained  with  it — all  sorts  of  colors 
from  strata  of  rock,  from  clays  and  slates,  from 
minerals,  from  lichens,  from  mosses.  The 
stones  under  your  feet  have  not  turned  black 
or  brown  because  out  of  the  sunlight.  If  you 
were  on  the  upper  rim  of  the  canyon  looking 
down,  the  whole  body  of  air  in  shadow  would 
look  blue.  And  that  strange  light  coming  from 
above  I  You  may  have  had  doubts,  too,  about 
the  intense  luminosity  of  the  blue  sky  ;  but  look 
up  at  it  along  the  walls  of  rock  to  where  it 
spreads  in  a  thin  strip  above  the  jaws  of  the 
canyon.  Did  you  ever  see  such  light  coming 
out  of  the  blue  before  I  See  how  it  flashes  from 
the  long  line  of  tumbling  water  that  pitches  over 
the  rocks  !  White  as  an  avalanche,  the  water 
slips  through  the  air  down  to  its  basin  of  stone  ; 
and  white,  again,  as  the  snow  are  the  foam  and 
froth  of  the  pool. 
Stones  and  water  in  a  gorge,  wastes  of  rock 


MESAS  AND  FOOT-HILLS 


211 


thrust  npward  into  mountains,  long  vistas  of 
plain  and  mesa  glaring  in  the  sunlight — what 
things  are  these  for  a  human  being  to  fall  in 
love  with  ?  Doctor  Johnson,  who  occasionally 
went  into  the  country  to  see  his  friends,  but 
never  to  see  the  country,  who  thought  a  man 
demented  who  enjoyed  living  out  of  town  ;  and 
who  cared  for  a  tree  only  as  firewood  or  lum- 
ber, what  would  he  have  had  to  say  about  the 
desert  and  its  confines  ?  In  his  classic  time, 
and  in  all  the  long  time  before  him,  the  earth 
and  the  beauty  thereof  remained  comparatively 
unnoticed  and  unknown.  Scott,  Byron,  Hugo, 
— not  one  of  the  old  romanticists  ever  knew 
Nature  except  as  in  some  strained  way  symbolic 
of  human  happiness  or  misery.  Even  when  the 
naturalists  of  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  took  up  the  study  they  were  impressed 
at  first  only  with  the  large  and  more  apparent 
beauties  of  the  world — the  Alps,  the  Niagaras, 
the  Grand  Canyons,  the  panoramic  views  from 
mountain-tops.  They  never  would  have  tol- 
erated the  desert  for  a  moment. 

But  the  Nature-lover  of  the  present,  who  has 
taken  so  kindly  to  the  minor  beauties  of  the 
world,  has  perhaps  a  little  wider  horizon  than 
his  predecessors.     Not  that  his  positive  knowl- 


Desert 
landscape. 


The  former 
knowledge 
of  Nature. 


212 


THE  DESERT 


Tlie  Nature- 
lover  of  the 
present. 


Human 
limitationt. 


edge  is  so  much  greater,  but  rather  where  he 
lacks  in  knowledge  he  declines  to  condemn. 
He  knows  now  that  Nature  did  not  give  all  her 
energy  to  the  large  things  and  all  her  weakness 
to  the  small  things;  he  knows  now  that  she 
works  by  law  and  labors  alike  for  all ;  he  knows 
now  that  back  of  everything  is  a  purpose,  and 
if  he  can  discover  the  purpose  he  cannot  choose 
but  admire  the  product. 

That  is  something  of  an  advance  no  doubt — 
a  grasp  at  human  limitations  at  least — but  there 
is  no  reason  to  think  that  it  will  lead  to  any 
lofty  heights.  Nature  never  intended  that  we 
should  fully  understand.  That  we  have  stum- 
bled upon  some  knowledge  of  her  laws  was  more 
accident  than  design.  We  have  by  some  strange 
chance  groped  our  way  to  the  Gate  of  the  Gar- 
den, and  there  we  stand,  staring  through  the 
closed  bars,  with  the  wonder  of  little  children. 
Alas  !  we  shall  always  grope !  And  shall  we 
ever  cease  to  wonder  ? 


CHAPTER  XII 
MOUNTAIN-BARRIERS 

The  character  of  the  land  lying  along  the 
western  boundaries  of  the  deserts  is  very  differ- 
ent from  that  of  the  Arizona  canyon  country. 
Moving  toward  the  Pacific  you  meet  with  no 
mesas  of  consequence,  nor  do  you  traverse  many 
plateaus  or  foot-hills.  The  sands  extend  up  to 
the  bases  of  the  Coast  Range  and  then  stop 
short  The  mountains  rise  abruptly  from  the 
desert  like  a  barrier  or  wall.  Sometimes  they 
lift  vertically  for  several  thousand  feet,  but 
more  often  they  present  only  a  steep  rough 
grade.  There  are  cracks  in  the  wall  called 
passes,  through  which  railways  lead  on  to  the 
Pacific  ;  and  there  are  high  divides  and  saddles 
— dips  in  the  top  of  the  wall — through  which  in 
the  old  days  the  Indians  trailed  from  desert  to 
sea,  and  which  are  to-day  known  only  to  the 
inquisitive  few. 

From  the  saddles — and  better  still  from  the 
topmost  peaks — there  are  wonderful  sights  to 
213 


The  wefstem 
mountains. 


Saddles  and 
passes. 


214 


THE  DESERT 


Thevieio 
from  the 
mountain- 


Iiooking  up 
toward  the 
peak. 


be  seen.  Yon  will  never  know  the  vast  reach 
of  the  deserts  until  you  see  them  from  a  point 
of  rock  ten  thousand  feet  in  air.  Then  you  are 
standing  on  the  Kim  of  the  Bowl  and  can  see 
the  yellow  ocean  of  sand  within  and  the  blue 
ocean  of  water  without.  The  ascent  to  that 
high  point  is,  however,  not  easy,  especially  if 
undertaken  from  the  desert  side.  But  nothing 
could  be  more  interesting  in  quick  change  and 
new  surprise  than  the  rise  from  the  hot  waste 
at  the  bottom  to  the  cold  white-capped  peaks  of 
the  top.  It  is  not  often  that  you  find  moun- 
tains with  their  feet  thrust  into  tropic  sands 
and  their  heads  thrust  into  clouds  of  snow^) 

Before  you  start  to  climb,  before  you  reach 
the  foot  of  the  mountains,  you  are  struck  by 
the  number  of  dry  washes  leading  down  from 
the  sides  and  gradually  losing  themselves  in  the 
sands.  As  the  eyes  trace  these  arroyos  up  the 
mountain-side  they  are  seen  to  turn  into  green 
streaks  and  finally,  near  the  peak,  into  white 
streaks.  You  know  what  that  means  and  yet 
can  hardly  believe  that  those  white  lines  are 
snow-banks  packed  many  feet  deep  in  the  can- 
yons ;  that  from  them  run  streams  which 
lower  down  become  green  lines  because  of  the 
grasses,   bushes,   and  trees  growing  on  their 


MOUNTAIN-l^AKRTERS 


215 


banks;  and  that  finally  the  streams,  after 
plunging  through  canyons,  fall  into  the  arroyos 
and  are  drunk  up  by  the  desert  sands  before 
they  have  left  the  mountain-bases.  It  seems 
incredible  that  a  stream  should  be  born ;  run  its 
course  through  valley,  gorge,  and  canyon  ;  and 
then  disappear  forever  in  the  sands,  all  within 
a  few  miles.  Yet  not  one  but  many  of  these 
mountain-streams  have  that  brief  history. 

And  at  one  time  they  must  have  been  larger, 
or  there  were  slips  of  glaciers  or  avalanches  on 
the  mountains ;  for  the  arroyos  are  piled  with 
great  blocks  of  granite  and  there  are  rows  of 
bowlders  on  either  side  which  might  have  been 
rolled  there  by  floods  or  pushed  there  by  an  ice- 
sheet.  As  you  draw  nearer,  the  bowlders  crop 
out  in  large  fields  and  beds.  They  surround 
the  rock  bases  like  a  deposit  rather  than  a  talus, 
and  over  them'one  must  pass  on  his  way  up  the 
mountain-side. 

If  you  ascend  by  the  bed  of  the  arroyo  it  is 
not  long  before  you  begin  to  note  the  presence 
of  underground  water.  It  is  apparent  in  the 
green  of  the  vegetation.  The  grasses  are  seen 
growing  first  in  bunches  and  then  in  sods, 
little  blue  flowers  are  blooming  beside  the 
grasses;  alders,  willows,  and  young  sycamores 


216 


THE  DESERT 


are  growing  along  the  banks,  and  live-oaks  are 
in  the  stream-bed  among  the  bowlders.  As  you 
move  up  and  into  the  mountain  the  bed  be- 
comes more  of  a  rocky  floor,  the  earth-deposits 
grow  thinner,  and  presently  little  water-pockets 
begin  to  show  themselves.  At  first  you  see 
them  in  pot-holes  and  worn  basins  in  the  rock, 
then  water  begins  to  show  in  small  pools  under 
cut  banks,  and  then  perhaps  there  is  a  little 
glassy  slip  of  light  over  a  flat  rock  in  a  narrow 
section  of  the  bed.  Gradually  the  slip  grows  in 
length  and  joins  the  pools,  until  at  last  you 
see  the  stream  come  to  life,  as  it  were,  out  of 
the  ground. 

The  banks  begin  to  rise.  As  you  advance 
they  lift  higher  and  higher,  they  grow  into 
abrupt  walls  of  rock  ;  the  strata  of  granite  crop 
out  in  ragged  ledges.  The  trees  and  grasses 
disappear,  and  in  their  place  come  cold  pale 
flowers  growing  out  of  beds  of  moss,  or  cling- 
ing in  rock-niches  where  all  around  the  gray 
and  orange  lichens  are  weaving  tapestries  upon 
the  walls.  The  bed  of  the  stream  seems  to  have 
sunken  down,  but  in  reality  it  is  rising  by  steps 
and  falls  ever  increasing  in  size.  The  stream 
itself  has  grown  much  larger,  swifter,  more 
noisy.     You   move  slowly  up  and  around  the 


MOUNTAIN-BARRIERS 


217 


falls,  each  one  harder  to  surmount  than  the  last, 
until  finally  you  are  in  the  canyon. 

The  walls  are  high,  the  air  is  damp,  the  light 
is  dim.  The  glare  and  heat  of  the  desert  have 
vanished  and  in  their  place  is  the  shadow  of  the 
cave.  You  toil  on  far  up  the  chasm,  creeping 
along  ledges  and  rising  by  niches,  until  a  great 
pool,  a  basin  hewn  from  the  rock,  is  before 
you ;  and  the  hewer  is  seen  waving  and  flash- 
ing in  the  air  a  hundred  feet  as  it  falls  into  the 
pool.  Around  you  and  ahead  of  you  is  a  sheer 
pitch  of  rock  curved  like  a  horseshoe.  It  is 
insurmountable ;  there  is  no  thoroughfare. 
You  will  not  gain  the  peak  by  way  of  the  can- 
yon. The  water-ousel  on  the  basin  edge — sole 
tenant  of  the  gorge — seems  to  laugh  at  your  ig- 
norance of  that  fact.  Let  us  turn  back  and  try 
the  ridges. 

Up  the  faces  of  the  spurs  and  thus  by  the 
backbones  and  saddles  to  the  summit  is  not 
easy  travelling.  At  first  desert  vegetation  sur- 
rounds you,  for  the  cacti  and  all  their  compan- 
ions creep  up  the  mountain-side  as  far  as  possi- 
ble. The  desert  does  not  give  up  its  dominion 
easily.  Bowlders  are  everywhere,  vines  and 
grasses  are  growing  under  their  shade  ;  and,  as 
you  advance,  the  bushes  arise  and  gradually 


In  the 

gorge. 


The  ascent 
by  the 
ridges. 


218 


THE  DESERT 


The 
chaparral. 


Home  of  the 
grizzly. 


judge  trails 
and  taluses. 


thicken  into  brush,  and  the  brush  runs  into  a 
chaparral.  The  manzanita,  the  lavender  and 
white  lilac,  the  buckthorn,  the  laurel,  the  su- 
mac, all  throw  out  stiff  dry  arms  that  tear  at 
your  clothing.  The  mountain-covering  that 
from  below  looked  an  ankle-deep  of  grasses  and 
weeds — a  velvety  carpet  only — turns  out  to  be 
a  dense  tangle  of  brush  a  dozen  feet  high.  It 
is  not  an  attractive  place  because  the  only  suc- 
cessful method  of  locomotion  through  it  is  on 
the  hands  and  knees.  That  method  of  moving 
is  peculiar  to  the  bear,  and  so  for  that  matter 
is  the  chaparral  through  which  you  are  tearing 
your  way.  It  is  one  of  the  hiding-places  of  the 
grizzly.  And  there  are  plenty  of  grizzlies  still 
left  in  the  Sierra  Madre.  To  avoid  the  chapar- 
ral (and  also  the  bear)  you  would  better  keep 
on  the  sunny  side  of  the  spurs  where  the 
ground  is  more  open. 

You  are  at  the  top  of  one  of  the  outlying  spurs 
at  last  and  you  find  there  a  dim  trail  made  by 
deer  and  wolves  leading  along  the  ridge,  across 
the  saddle,  and  up  to  the  next  spur.  As  you 
follow  this  you  presently  emerge  from  the  brush 
and  come  face  to  face  with  a  declivity,  covered 
by  broken  blocks  of  stone  that  seem  to  have 
been  slipping  down  the  mountain-side  for  cen- 


MOUNTAIN-BARRIERS 


219 


tnries.  It  is  an  old  talus  of  one  of  the  spurs. 
You  wind  about  it  diagonally  until  different 
ground  is  reached,  and  then  yon  are  once  more 
upon  a  ridge — higher  by  a  spur  than  before. 

Again  the  scene  changes.  An  open  park- 
like country  appears  covered  with  tall  grass, 
the  sunlight  flickers  on  the  shiny  leaves  of  live- 
oaks,  and  dotted  here  and  there  are  tall  yuccas 
in  bloom — the  last  of  the  desert  growths  to 
vanish  from  the  scene.  Flowers  strange  to  the 
desert  are  growing  in  the  grass — clumps  of  yel- 
low violets,  little  fields  of  pink  alfileria,  purple 
lilies,  purple  nightshades,  red  paint-brushes, 
and  flaming  fire-rods.  And  there  are  birds  in  the 
trees  that  know  the  desert  only  as  they  fiy — blue 
birds  with  red  breasts  as  in  New  England,  blue- 
jays  with  their  chatter  as  in  Minnesota,  blue- 
backed  woodpeckers  with  their  tapping  on  dead 
limbs  as  in  Pennsylvania.  And  here  was  once 
the  stamping-ground  of  the  mule-deer.  Here 
in  the  old  days  under  the  shade  of  the  live-oak 
he  would  drowse  away  the  heat  of  the  day  and 
at  night  perhaps  step  down  to  the  desert.  He 
was  safe  then  in  the  open  country,  but  to-day 
he  knows  danger  and  skulks  in  the  depths  of 
the  chaparral,  from  which  a  hound  can  scarcely 
drive  him. 


Among  tha 
live-oaks. 


Birds  and 
deer. 


220 


THE  DESERT 


Onward  and  upward  throngh  the  oaks  until 
you  are  on  the  top  of  another  ridge.  Did  you 
think  it  was  the  top  because  it  hid  the  peak  ? 
Ah  no ;  the  granite  crags  are  still  far  above 
you.  And  there,  yawning  at  your  very  feet,  is 
another  canyon  whose  existence  you  never  sus- 
pected. How  steep  and  broad  and  ragged  the 
walls  look  to  you  I  And  down  in  the  bottom 
of  the  canyon — almost  a  mile  down  it  seems — 
are  huge  masses  of  rock,  fallen  towers  and 
ledges,  great  frost-heaved  strata  lying  piled  in 
confusion  among  trees  and  vines  and  heavy 
brush.  Here  and  there  down  the  canyon's 
length  appear  disconnected  flashes  of  silvery 
light  showing  where  a  stream  is  dashing  its 
way  under  rocks  and  through  tangled  brush 
down  to  the  sandy  sea.  And  far  above  you  to 
the  right  where  the  canyon  heads  is  a  streak  of 
dirty-looking  snow.  There  is  nothing  for  it 
but  to  get  around  the  head  of  the  canyon  above 
the  snow-streak,  for  crossing  the  canyon  itself 
is  unprofitable,  not  to  say  impossible. 

How  odd  it  seems  after  the  sands  to  see  the 
snow.  The  long  wedge  lying  in  the  barranca 
under  the  shadowed  lee  of  an  enormous  spur  is 
not  very  inviting  looking.  It  has  melted  down 
and  accumulated  dust  and  dirt  until  it  looks  al- 


MOUNTAIN-BARRIERS 


221 


most  like  a  bed  of  clay.  But  the  little  stream 
running  away  from  its  lowest  part  is  pure  ;  and 
it  dashes  through  the  canyon,  tumbles  into  little 
pools,  and  slips  over  shelving  precipices  like  a 
thing  of  life.  Could  the  canyon  have  been  cut 
out  of  the  solid  rock  by  that  little  stream  ?  Who 
knows  I  Besides,  the  stream  is  not  always  so 
small.  The  descent  is  steep,  and  bowlders  car- 
ried down  by  great  floods  cut  faster  than  water. 
It  is  dangerous  travelling  —  this  crossing  of 
snow-banks  in  June.  You  never  know  how 
soft  they  may  be  nor  how  deep  they  may  drop 
you.  Better  head  the  snow-bank  no  matter  how 
much  hard  brush  and  harder  stones  there  may 
be  to  fight  against.  The  pines  are  above  yon 
and  they  are  beginning  to  appear  near  you.  Be- 
side you  is  a  solitary  shaft  of  dead  timber,  its 
branches  wrenched  from  it  long  ago  and  its 
trunk  left  standing  against  the  winds.  And  on 
the  ground  about  you  there  are  fallen  trunks, 
crumbled  almost  to  dust,  and  near  them  young 
pines  springing  up  to  take  the  place  of  the  fallen. 
Manzanita  and  buckthorn  and  lilac  are  here, 
too  ;  but  the  chaparral  is  not  so  dense  as  lower 
down.  You  pass  through  it  easily  and  press  on 
upward,  still  upward,  in  the  cool  mountain-air, 
until  you  are  above  the  barranca  of  snow  and  un- 


The  toeoTi 
water., 


The  pines. 


222 


THE  DESERT 


Barrancas 
and  escarp- 
ments. 


Under 
the  pines. 


Bushes, 
ferns,  and 
mosses. 


der  the  lee  of  a  vast  escarpment.  The  wall  is 
perpendicular  and  you  have  to  circle  it  looking 
for  an  exit  higher  up.  For  half  an  hour  you 
move  across  a  talus  of  granite  blocks,  and  then 
through  a  break  in  the  wall  you  clamber  up  to 
the  top  of  the  escarpment.  You  are  on  a  high 
spur  which  leads  up  a  pine-clad  slope.  You  are 
coming  nearer  your  quest. 

The  pines  ! — at  last  the  pines  !  How  gigan- 
tic they  seem,  those  trees  standing  so  calm  and 
majestic  in  their  mantles  of  dark  green — how 
gigantic  to  eyes  grown  used  to  the  little  palo 
verde  or  the  scrubby  grease-wood  !  All  classes 
of  pines  are  here — sugar  pines,  bull  pines,  white 
pines,  yellow  pines — not  in  dense  numbers 
standing  close  together  as  in  the  woods  of  Ore- 
gon, but  scattered  here  and  there  with  open 
aisles  through  which  the  sunshine  falls  in  broad 
bars.  Many  small  bushes — berry  bushes  most 
of  them — are  under  the  pines  ;  and  with  them 
are  grasses  growing  in  tufts,  flowers  growing  in 
beds,  and  bear-clover  growing  in  fields.  Aimless 
and  apparently  endless  little  streams  wander 
everywhere,  and  ferns  and  mosses  go  with  them. 
Bowlder  streams  they  are,  for  the  rounded  bowl- 
der is  still  in  evidence — in  the  stream,  on  the 
bank,  and  under  the  roots  of  the  pine. 


MOUNTAIN-BARRIERS 


223 


The  beautiful  mountain-quail  loves  to  scram- 
ble over  these  stones,  especially  when  they  are 
in  the  water ;  and  the  mountain-quail  is  here. 
This  is  his  abiding-place,  and  you  are  sure  to 
see  him,  for  he  has  a  curiosity  akin  to  that  of 
the  antelope  and  must  get  on  a  bowlder  or  a  log 
to  look  at  you.  And  this  is  the  home  of  hun- 
dreds of  woodpeckers  that  seem  to  spend  their 
entire  lives  in  pounding  holes  in  the  pine-trees 
and  then  pounding  acorns  into  the  holes.  It 
is  a  very  thrifty  practice  and  provides  against 
winter  consumption,  only  the  squirrels  consume 
the  greater  part  of  the  acorns  if  the  blue-jays 
do  not  get  ahead  of  them.  For  here  lives  the 
ordinary  blue- jay  and  also  his  mountain  cousin, 
the  crested  jay,  with  a  coat  so  blue  that  it  might 
better  be  called  indigo.  A  beautiful  bird,  but 
with  a  jangling  note  that  rasps  the  air  with  dis- 
cord. His  chief  occupation  seems  to  be  climb- 
ing pine-trees  as  by  the  rungs  of  a  ladder. 
There  are  sweeter  notes  from  the  warblers,  the 
nuthatches,  and  the  chickadees.  But  no  desert- 
bird  comes  up  so  high  ;  and  as  for  the  common 
lawn  and  field  birds  like  the  robin  and  the 
thrush,  they  do  not  fancy  the  pines. 

Upward,  still  upward,  under  the  spreading 
arms  of  the  pines  !    How  silent  the  forest  save 


3f(nintain- 
quail. 


Indigojays, 


Warblers. 


224 


THE  DESERT 


The  moun- 
tain-air. 


The  dwarf 


The 


for  the  soughing  of  the  wind  through  the  pine 
needles  and  the  jangle  of  the  jays  !  And  how 
thin  and  clear  the  mountain-air !  How  white  the 
sunlight  falling  upon  the  moss-covered  rocks  !  It 
must  be  that  we  have  risen  out  of  the  dust- 
laden  atmosphere  of  the  desert.  And  out  of 
its  heat  too.  The  air  feels  as  though  blown  to 
us  from  snow-banks,  and  indeed,  they  are  in  the 
gullies  lying  on  either  side  of  us.  For  now  we 
are  coming  close  to  the  peak.  The  bushes  have 
been  dwindling  away  for  some  time  past,  and 
the  pines  have  been  growing  thinner  in  body, 
fewer  in  number,  smaller  in  size.  A  dwarf  pine 
begins  to  show  itself — a  scraggly  tempest-fight- 
ing tree,  designed  by  Nature  to  grow  among  the 
bowlders  of  the  higher  peaks  and  to  be  the  first 
to  stop  the  slides  of  snow.  The  hardy  grasses 
fight  beside  it,  and  with  them  is  the  little  snow- 
bird, fighting  for  life  too. 

Upward,  still  upward,  until  great  spaces  be- 
gin to  show  through  the  trees  and  the  ground 
flattens  and  becomes  a  floor  of  rock.  In  the 
barrancas  on  the  north  side  the  snow  still  lies  in 
banks,  but  on  the  south  side,  where  the  sun  falls 
all  day,  the  ground  is  bare.  You  are  now  above 
the  timber  line.  Nothing  shows  but  wrecked 
and  shattered  strata  of  rock  with  patches  of 


MOUNTAIN-BARRIERS 


225 


stunted  grass.  The  top  is  only  barren  stone. 
The  uppermost  peak,  which  you  have  perhaps 
seen  from  the  desert  a  hundred  miles  away  look- 
ing like  a  sharp  spine  of  granite  shot  up  in  the 
air,  turns  out  to  be  something  more  of  a  dome 
than  a  spine — a  rounded  knob  of  gray  granite 
which  you  have  no  difficulty  in  ascending. 

At  last  you  are  on  the  peak  and  your  first 
impulse  is  to  look  down.  But  no.  Look  up  I 
You  have  read  and  heard  many  times  of  the 
'Meep  blue  sky."  It  is  a  stock  phrase  in  nar- 
rative and  romance  ;  but  I  venture  to  doubt  if 
you  have  ever  seen  one.  It  is  seen  only  from 
high  points — from  just  such  a  place  as  you  are 
now  standing  upon.  Therefore  look  up  first  of 
all  and  see  a  blue  sky  that  is  turning  into  violet. 
Were  you  ten  thousand  feet  higher  in  the  air 
you  would  see  it  darkened  to  a  purple-violet 
with  the  stars  even  at  midday  shining  through 
it.  How  beautiful  it  is  in  color  and  how  won- 
derful it  is  in  its  vast  reach  I  The  dome  in- 
stead of  contracting  as  you  rise  into  it,  seems  to 
expand.  There  are  no  limits  to  its  uttermost 
edge,  no  horizon  lines  to  say  where  it  begins. 
It  is  not  now  a  cup  or  cover  for  the  world,  but 
something  that  reaches  to  infinity — something 
in  which  the  world  floats. 


The  look 
upward  at 
the  sky. 


The  dark- 
blue  dortie. 


226 


THE  DESERT 


WhiU  light. 


IHstant 

views. 


The  Paeifie. 


And  do  you  notice  that  the  sun  is  no  longer 
yellow  but  white,  and  that  the  light  that  comes 
from  it  is  cold  with  just  the  faintest  shade  of 
violet  about  it  ?  The  air,  too,  is  changed. 
Look  at  the  far-away  ridges  and  peaks,  some  of 
them  snow-capped,  but  the  majority  of  them 
bare  ;  and  see  the  air  how  blue  and  purple  it 
looks  along  the  tops  and  about  the  slopes.  Peak 
upon  peak  and  chain  upon  chain  disappear  to 
the  north  and  south  in  a  mysterious  veil  of  gray, 
blue,  and  purple.  Green  pine-clad  spurs  of  the 
peaks,  green  slopes  of  the  peaks  themselves, 
keep  fading  away  in  blue  -  green  mazes  and 
hazes.  Look  dov/n  into  the  canyons,  into  the 
shadowed  depths  where  the  air  lies  packed  in  a 
mass,  and  the  top  of  the  mass  seems  to  reflect 
purple  again.  This  is  a  very  different  air  from 
the  glowing  mockery  that  dances  in  the  basin 
of  Death  Valley.  It  is  mountain-air  and  yet 
has  something  of  the  sea  in  it.  Even  at  this 
height  you  can  feel  the  sea-breezes  moving  along 
the  western  slopes.  For  the  ocean  is  near  at 
hand — not  a  hundred  miles  away  as  the  crow 
flies.  From  the  mountain-top  it  looks  like  a 
flat  blue  band  appended  to  the  lower  edge  of 
the  sky,  and  it  counts  in  the  landscape  only  as 
a  strip  of  color  or  light. 


MOUNTAIN-BARRIERS 


227 


Between  the  ocean  and  the  mountain  you  are 
standing  upon  lies  the  habitable  portion  of 
Southern  California,  spread  out  like  a  relief 
map  with  its  broken  ranges,  its  chaparral-cov- 
ered foot-hills,  and  its  wide  valleys.  How  fair 
it  looks  lying  under  the  westering  sun  with 
the  shadows  drawing  in  the  canyons,  and  the 
valleys  glowing  with  the  yellow  light  from 
fields  of  ripened  barley  I  And  what  a  con- 
trast to  the  yellow  of  the  grain  are  the  dark 
green  orchards  of  oranges  and  lemons  scat- 
tered at  regular  intervals  like  the  squares  of 
a  checker-board  !  And  what  pretty  spots  of 
light  and  color  on  the  map  are  the  orchards 
of  prunes,  apricots,  peaches,  pears,  the  patches 
of  velvety  alfalfa,  the  groves  of  eucalyptus  and 
Monterey  cypress,  the  long  waving  green  lines 
of  cotton  woods  and  willows  that  show  where 
run  the  mountain-streams  to  the  sea  ! 

Yet  large  as  they  are,  these  are  only  spots. 
The  cultivated  portion  of  the  land  is  but  a 
flower-garden  beside  the  unbroken  foot-hills 
and  the  untenanted  valleys.  As  you  look  down 
upon  them  the  terra-cotta  of  the  granite 
shows  through  the  chaparral  of  the  hills  ;  and 
the  sands  of  the  valleys  have  the  glitter  of  the 
desert.      You   know  intuitively   that  all  this 


228 


THE  DESERT 


Reclaiming 
the  valleys. 


Fighting 
/ertility. 


country  was  planned  by  Nature  to  be  desert. 
Down  to  the  water-edge  of  the  Pacific  she  once 
carried  the  light,  air,  and  life  of  the  Mojave 
and  the  Colorado. 

But  man  has  in  measure  changed  the  desert 
conditions  by  storing  the  waste  waters  of  the 
mountains  and  reclaiming  the  valleys  by  irriga- 
tion. His  success  has  been  phenomenal.  Out 
of  the  wilderness  there  have  sprung  farms, 
houses,  towns,  cities  with  their  wealth  and  lux- 
ury. But  the  cultivated  conditions  are  main- 
tained only  at  the  price  of  eternal  vigilance. 
Nature  is  compelled  to  reap  where  she  has  not 
sown ;  and  at  times  she  seems  almost  human  in 
the  way  she  rebels  and  recurs  to  former  condi- 
tions. Two,  three ;  yes,  at  times,  four  years 
in  succession  she  gives  little  rain.  A  great 
drouth  follows.  Then  the  desert  breaks  in 
upon  the  valley  ranches,  upon  the  fields  of  bar- 
ley, the  orchards  of  prunes  and  peaches  and 
apricots.  Then  abandoned  farms  are  quite  as 
plentiful  as  in  New  England ;  and  once  aban- 
doned, but  a  few  years  elapse  before  the  desert 
has  them  for  its  own.  Nature  is  always  driven 
with  difficulty.  Out  on  the  Mojave  she  fights 
barrenness  at  every  turn ;  here  in  Southern 
California  she  fights  fertility.     She  is  deter- 


MOUNTAIN-BARRIERS 


229 


mined  to  maintain  just  so  much  of  desert  with 
just  so  much  of  its  hardy,  stubborn  life.  When 
she  is  pleased  to  enhance  it  or  abate  it  she  will 
do  so ;  but  in  her  own  good  time  and  way. 

Come  to  the  eastern  side  of  the  peak  and 
look  out  once  more  upon  the  desert  while  yet 
there  is  time.  The  afternoon  sun  is  driving 
its  rays  through  the  passes  like  the  sharp-cut 
shafts  of  search-lights,  and  the  shadows  of  the 
mountains  are  lengthening  in  distorted  silhou- 
ette upon  the  sands  below.  Yet  still  the  San 
Bernardino  Range,  leading  oS  southeast  to  the 
Colorado  River,  is  glittering  with  sunlight  at 
every  peak.  You  are  above  it  and  can  see  over 
its  crests  in  any  direction.  The  vast  sweep  of 
the  Mojave  lies  to  the  north ;  the  Colorado 
with  its  old  sea-bed  lies  to  the  south.  Far 
away  to  the  east  you  can  see  the  faint  forms  of 
the  Arizona  mountains  melting  and  mingling 
with  the  sky  ;  and  in  between  lie  the  long  pink 
rifts  of  the  desert  valleys  and  the  lilac  tracery 
of  the  desert  ranges. 

What  a  wilderness  of  fateful  buffetings ! 
All  the  elemental  forces  seem  to  have  turned 
against  it  at  different  times.  It  has  been  swept 
by  seas,  shattered  by  earthquakes  and  volca- 
noes, beaten  by  winds  and  sands,  and  scorched 


Tlie  desert 
from  the 
mountain- 
top. 


The  great 
extent  of  the 
desert. 


The  fateful 
wildemesa. 


230 


THE  DESEBT 


by  suns.  Yet  in  spite  of  all  it  has  endured.  It 
remains  a  factor  in  Nature's  plan.  It  main- 
tains its  types  and  out  of  its  desolation  it  brings 
forth  increase  that  the  species  may  not  perish 
from  the  face  of  the  earth. 

And  yet  in  the  fulness  of  time  Nature  de- 
signs that  this  waste  and  all  of  earth  with  it 
shall  perish.  Individual,  type,  and  species,  all 
shall  pass  away ;  and  the  globe  itself  become  as 
desert  sand  blown  hither  and  yon  through 
space.  She  cares  nothing  for  the  individual 
man  or  bird  or  beast ;  can  it  be  thought  that 
she  cares  any  more  for  the  individual  world  ? 
She  continues  the  earth-life  by  the  death  of  the 
old  and  the  birth  of  the  new ;  can  it  be  thought 
that  she  deals  differently  with  the  planetary 
and  stellar  life  of  the  universe  ?  Whence  come 
the  new  worlds  and  their  satellites  unless  from 
the  dust  of  dead  worlds  compounded  with  the 
energy  of  nebulae  ?  Our  outlook  is  limited  in- 
deed, but  have  we  not  proof  in  our  own  moon 
that  worlds  do  die  ?  Is  it  possible  that  its 
bleached  body  will  never  be  disintegrated,  will 
never  dissolve  and  be  resolved  again  into  some 
new  life  ?  And  how  came  it  to  die  ?  What 
was  the  element  that  failed — fire,  water,  or  at- 
mosphere ?    Perhaps  it  was  water.    Perhaps  it 


MOUNTAIN-BARRIERS 


231 


died  through  thousands  of  years  with  the  slow 
evaporation  of  moisture  and  the  slow  growth  of 
the — desert. 

Is  then  this  great  expanse  of  sand  and  rock 
the  beginning  of  the  end  ?  Is  that  the  way  our 
globe  shall  perish  ?  Who  can  say  ?  Nature 
plans  the  life,  she  plans  the  death ;  it  must  be 
that  she  plans  aright.  For  death  may  be  the 
culmination  of  all  character  ;  and  life  but  the 
process  of  its  development.  If  so,  then  not  in 
vain  these  wastes  of  sand.  The  harsh  destiny, 
the  life-long  struggle  which  they  have  imposed 
upon  all  the  plants  and  birds  and  animals  have 
been  but  as  the  stepping-stones  of  character.  It 
is  true  that  Nature  taxed  her  invention  to  the 
utmost  that  each  might  not  wage  unequal  strife. 
She  gave  cunning,  artifice,  persistence,  strength ; 
she  wished  that  each  should  endure  and  fulfil 
to  its  appointed  time.  But  it  is  not  the  armor 
that  develops  the  wearer  thereof.  It  is  the 
struggle  itself — the  hard  friction  of  the  fight. 
Not  in  the  spots  of  earth  where  plenty  breeds 
indolence  do  we  meet  with  the  perfected  type. 
It  is  in  the  land  of  adversity,  and  out  of  much 
pain  and  travail  that  finally  emerges  the  high- 
est manifestation. 

Not  in  vain  these  wastes  of  sand.    And  this 


232 


THE  DESERT 


Sublimity 
<^f  the  waste. 


Desolation 
mid  silence. 


time  not  because  they  develop  character  in  des- 
ert life,  but  simply  because  they  are  beautiful 
in  themselves  and  good  to  look  upon  whether 
they  be  life  or  death.  In  sublimity — the  su- 
perlative degree  of  beauty — what  land  can  equal 
the  desert  with  its  wide  plains,  its  grim  moun- 
tains, and  its  expanding  canopy  of  sky  !  You 
shall  never  see  elsewhere  as  here  the  dome,  the 
pinnacle,  the  minaret  fretted  with  golden  fire 
at  sunrise  and  sunset ;  you  shall  never  see  else- 
where as  here  the  sunset  valleys  swimming  in  a 
pink  and  lilac  haze,  the  great  mesas  and  plateaus 
fading  into  blue  distance,  the  gorges  and  can- 
yons banked  full  of  purple  shadow.  Never 
again  shall  you  see  such  light  and  air  and  color ; 
never  such  opaline  mirage,  such  rosy  dawn,  such 
fiery  twilight.  And  wherever  you  go,  by  land 
or  by  sea,  you  shall  not  forget  that  which  you 
saw  not  but  rather  felt — the  desolation  and  th6 
silence  of  the  desert. 

Look  out  from  the  mountain's  edge  once 
more.  A  dusk  is  gathering  on  the  desert's  face, 
and  over  the  eastern  horizon  the  purple  shadow 
of  the  world  is  reaching  up  to  the  sky.  The 
light  is  fading  out.  Plain  and  mesa  are  blurring 
into  unknown  distances,  and  mountain-ranges 
are  looming  dimly  into  unknown  heights.   Warm 


MOUNTAIN-BARRIERS 


233 


drifts  of  lilac-blue  are  drawn  like  mists  across 
the  valleys  ;  the  yellow  sands  have  shifted  into 
a  pallid  gray.  The  glory  of  the  wilderness  has 
gone  down  with  the  sun.  Mystery — that  haunt- 
ing sense  of  the  unknown — is  all  that  remains,  f 
It  is  time  that  we  should  say  good-night — per- 
haps a  long  good-night — to  the  desert. 


Oood-night 

tothe 

detert. 


C  \  a  R  A  /fp 

OF  THE 


cb 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


20  t047 

f".'\  19  r4 


Mai27'51. 


5FtB52CW 

22!an5rL' 


REC'D  LD 
NOV  15  1361 

:irey62Tpr 


oio 


t>f-* 


Rc;< 

JUN    91962 

I  M?y'65SU 

REC'D  LD 

JUN  10 '65 -1PM 


^91A 


?)^^ 


•?4 


LD  21-100m-9,'47(A57028l6)47« 


VG  20373 


,,■...£ 

101 6Zi  t^f 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


